Statistics on youth unemployment in China have ceased to be published, which some experts believed to be a crucial sign of the nation’s decline.
According to a government spokeswoman Fu Linghui, the choice was made as a result of changes in the world’s second-largest economy and its society.
China’s urban 16 to 24-year-old unemployment rate reached a record high of more than 20% in June.
Recently, the nation’s central bank reduced borrowing costs in an effort to support growth.
According to official data released, China’s overall unemployment rate increased to 5.3% in July.
At the same time, the government announced a temporary suspension of data on youth unemployment but did not specify a time frame for the suspension, according to the BBC.
The method of calculating unemployment among young people needed to be reconsidered, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics said.
“The economy and society are constantly developing and changing. Statistical work needs continuous improvement,” Fu Linghui told a news conference in Beijing.
Fu suggested that the increase in students between the ages of 16 and 24 had an impact on the unemployment rate, although China has never included individuals who are in the education sector as unemployed.
In 2018, China began releasing statistics on youth unemployment. However, it does not currently release information on young people’s work status in rural areas.
According to the BBC, the revelation came as the nation’s post-pandemic economic recovery was sluggish.
Meanwhile, households across China have been thrown into panic over the past week as ‘Country Garden,’ a company renowned for building huge projects in China’s second and third-tier cities, missed USD 22.5 million in coupon payments on August 6, 2023.
The firm, one of the world’s largest homebuilders, has until early September to make the payments or has to follow hundreds of other developers who are in the default and restructuring category.