Monthly surveyed urban youth unemployment rate in China February 2021-2024

China resumed the release of youth unemployment data in January 2024 after publication had been suspended for six months, using a new statistical methodology. Youth unemployment hit a record high of 21.3 percent in June 2023 after having increased for several years in a row, when a spokesman of the National Bureau of Statistics of China announced that the statistical methodology for calculating age specific unemployment rates needed improvement and publication would be temporarily suspended. The new methodology does not include university students anymore, resulting in a youth unemployment rate of 15.3 percent in February 2024.

Youth jobless figures fluctuate over the year and normally peak in July in China, when the largest number of graduates enter the job market.