China’s jobless rate rises to 5.2% in July

China’s urban unemployment rate stood at 5.2 per cent in July, up 0.2 percentage points from June but down 0.1 percentage point from the same month last year, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday.

Over the first seven months, the average urban surveyed unemployment rate was 5.1 per cent, down 0.2 percentage points year-on-year.

The unemployment rate was 5.2 per cent for those with local household registration, 5.1 per cent for those with non-local household registration, and 4.9 per cent for those with non-local agricultural household registration.

In 31 major cities, the urban unemployment rate was 5.3 per cent, up 0.4 percentage points from June but down 0.1 percentage point from July 2023. Notably, employees worked an average of 48.7 hours per week.

Attribution: National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS) report