China's Youth Unemployment Hits Record High; Job Market Weakness is Likely to Persist

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China's Youth Unemployment Hits Record High; Job Market Weakness is Likely to Persist

September 09, 2022 | Report

Insights for What’s Ahead

China’s surveyed youth jobless rate climbed to almost 20 percent in July, a record high since tracking began in 2018.

A confluence of factors is contributing to China’s youth unemployment problem. Many are temporary, like the ongoing economic disruption due to pandemic-related control measures, a slow service sector recovery, and regulatory clampdowns. Others are deeper structural factors like jobs-to-skills and career expectation mismatches.

Improving the situation will largely depend on a recovery in consumer services and associated increases in hiring. While there are signs suggesting that a recovery in China’s employment levels is underway (y-o-y growth for new job creation improved in July, but year-to-date growth is still down compared with last year), a full recovery in the short-term is unlikely, given current economic conditions and ongoing COVID-19 restrictions.

China's Youth Unemployment Hits Record High

What’s Happening?

The unemployment rate for 16–24-year-olds hit a historic high of 19.9 percent in July. This is up 0.3 percentage points from June, 3.7 percentage points from July last year, and 6 percentage points from July 2019. It means that one in five young people in China are now jobless – significantly more than in the pre-COVID-19 era.