Yao Yang, president of the National Institute of Development studies at Peking University and a well-known Chinese economist, said recently that the unemployment rate released by the Statistics Bureau of the Communist Party of China is not accurate. According to the survey, China’s unemployment rate has reached 20 percent, with 100 million people out of work.
‘China’s economic recovery has a weak spot, that is, the recovery of consumption is still slow,’ Yao said, referring to the very low consumption in China, according to Tencent Finance. In August, consumption growth turned positive for the first time this year and is expected to remain negative for the whole year. Because income is the endogenous driving force of consumption, no income, no consumption, and no employment, no income.
Mr Yao said the surveyed unemployment rate published by the National Bureau of Statistics of the Communist Party of China held steady at around 6 per cent, but referred to the urban population, the main group of unemployed being the non-urban population. The authorities do not have such figures.
A team from Peking University’s National Development Institute conducted an online survey of more than 6,000 people at the end of June, showing unemployment at 15 percent, with another 5 percent underemployed. China’s employed population is more than 700 million, of which 70 percent are urban, or more than 500 million. If you calculate the 20% unemployment rate surveyed, more than 100 million people are out of work.
Yao Yang believes that the impact of the epidemic on China’s economy is very big. Many small and medium-sized enterprises (smes), especially those in the service sector, closed their doors in the first quarter, making it difficult for them to recover from their meagre profits. Some service businesses may have disappeared forever. This makes China’s employment situation more severe.
As for the trend of consumption next year, Yao Yang believes that the mainland consumption can not recover compared with this year, compared with the year before, to see whether there is a positive growth, it is difficult to see at present.
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