AFP
China needs to exert “more effort” to boost employment, a top official acknowledged on Saturday.
Beijing is struggling to revive its battered economy in the face of a prolonged property sector crisis, record youth unemployment and a global slowdown that is hammering demand for Chinese goods.
Youth unemployment hit an unprecedented 21.3 percent in mid-2023, before officials paused publishing monthly figures.
Wang Xiaoping, minister of human resources and social security, said on Saturday China was “confident about maintaining the continued stability of the employment situation”.
But “overall employment pressure has not lessened, and there are still structural contradictions to be solved,” she told reporters on the sidelines of a weeklong annual meeting of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament.
“A portion of workers face some challenges and problems in employment, and more effort needs to be made to stabilise employment,” Wang said.
China’s top leaders this week set an ambitious growth target of around five percent for 2024, which Premier Li Qiang warned would “not be easy”.
The government also aims to keep urban unemployment at around 5.5 percent this year and create more than 12 million jobs.
AFP
