Some notes from article on real unemployment in china now

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China’s official, though highly doubted, urban unemployment rate jumped to 6.2 per cent in February, the highest on record, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. That was up from 5.3 per cent in January and 5.2 per cent in December. The data, however, definitely underestimates the real joblessness picture, since it is based on the country’s 442.47 million urban workers and excludes about 300 million migrant workers, who are often more vulnerable to economic fluctuations.

Even going by government statistics, the one percentage point jump from December to February suggests an additional 5 million people thrown out of work. If the official data of 6.2 per cent completely covered China’s total workforce of about 775 million, that jump suggests at least 48 million Chinese were unemployed at the end of February. But in practice, migrant workers often have a much higher unemployment rate than their better-educated urban peers.

Despite life in China largely returning to normal after the lifting of lockdowns, most economists believe the country’s unemployment rate is much higher than official data suggests, based on subway commuter statistics from urban areas. For instance, Liu Chenjie, chief economist at fund manager Upright Asset, suggested that as many as 200 million people might have lost their jobs or been underemployed due to the virus.

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