Human resources

摘要

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's urban unemployment rate stood at 5.2% at end-2020, up from 3.6% at end-2019. It reached a high of 6.4% in February 2020 due to the coronavirus (Covid-19), but it eased in subsequent months as the economy recovered from the pandemic. The government has long acknowledged that the official statistics have tended to leave out many unemployed workers, including those laid off from the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and who still receive housing and a minimal living allowance from their former employers. The figures also do not count unemployment among the estimated 170m migrant workers from the countryside who seek work in China's urban areas.