China Youth Unemployment Rising Even As Economy Rebounds

China's rising jobless rate for young workers showed a point of concern in an otherwise bright economic picture painted by China's economic indicators for February.

The unemployment rate for Chinese aged 16 to 24 jumped to 13.1% in February, well above the national urban jobless rate of 5.5%, said the National Bureau of Statistics Monday. The urban unemployment rate is the benchmark measure of joblessness in China. Beijing has set an urban unemployment target for 2021 at 6.0% or less.

The 13.1% unemployment rate for young people was similar to that for the first quarter of 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 outbreak within China. Before a spike in January, the monthly urban unemployment rate had been on the decline since reaching a peak of 6.2% in February 2020.

UBS analysts said the number of jobless persons rose at the beginning of the year due to gig workers returning home for Chinese Lunar New Year. The bank expects the rate to drop later this year.

The outlook however might be invalidated by the historically large graduating class last year, which came to 9.1 million fresh graduates, according to analysts.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released Monday showed strong industrial production, consumption, investment and home sales in January and February. Economists said the January to February data reflect China's continued economic recovery from the COVID-19 lockdowns in early 2020.