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       China’s Youth Unemployment Rate Is Back, and Better

       The government stopped releasing the jobless rate for young workers when it was soaring. It says its “optimized” new method is more accurate.

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       A job fair in Beijing in June. Credit...Thomas Peter/Reuters

       By Claire Fu

       Reporting from Seoul

       Jan. 17, 2024, 2:13 a.m. ET

       After suspending the public release of youth unemployment rates last year, China started distributing the information again on Wednesday, using a different measurement criteria that lowered the figure significantly.

       China’s National Bureau of Statistics stopped announcing the jobless rate among 16- to 24-year-olds after the figure climbed for six consecutive months to 21.3 percent in June, a record high. The government said when it suspended the numbers for July that the collection of the information needed to be “further improved and optimized.”

       The growing number of unemployed young people had become an inconvenient data point that seemed to rebut Beijing’s assertion that the country’s economy was recovering after the lifting of pandemic restrictions.

       The government agency said the revamped jobless figures now exclude students in school. After adjusting its calculation methods, the bureau said jobless rates among 16- to 24-year-olds stood at 14.9 percent in December.

       Kang Yi, director of the National Bureau of Statistics, said at a news conference that this methodology produced “a more accurate monitor of youth unemployment” because it separates young people looking for part-time jobs while in school from those looking for full-time jobs after graduation. He noted that graduates need to find work, but the main task of students was “to study, not to work part time.”

       He Yafu, an independent demographer based in the southern city of Zhanjiang in Guangdong Province, said he believes the change in measurement helped to lower the main figure, although he thinks just as many young people are jobless.

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