China is taking a new approach to its jobless rate, but is it enough?
Beijing has started releasing monthly data based on surveys, as other countries do. It may be an improvement, but some say the rate is still ‘implausibly low’
China finally began releasing monthly jobless figures this week based on surveys, after decades of obscuring the real employment situation of the world’s second biggest economy.
The launch of the new measure by the National Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday – it was 5.1 per cent at the end of March – was welcomed by China watchers, who say it is a better indicator than the quarterly “urban registered jobless rate” that covered only those willing to go through the paperwork required to register.
Those quarterly numbers have barely changed over time, and are essentially meaningless when it comes to gauging the true employment picture in China.
This was laid bare when exporters in the coastal areas were hit by the global financial crisis in 2008, and some 20 million migrant workers found themselves out of a job. The registered jobless rate stayed much the same because it does not include the country’s 270 million migrant workers.
