The sources OP is likely citing, such as this one from CNBC (not an archived link, sorry), say it's the youth unemployment rate, which I would assume does not include students or individuals not actively seeking work.

OP if you'd like to link your own preferred sources please do.

[–] morry040@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

This is the official government reporting: https://data.stats.gov.cn/english/easyquery.htm?cn=A01

As of Jun 2023, the "The Urban Surveyed Unemployment Rate of the Population Aged from 16 to 24(%)" was 21.3%.
The "Urban Surveyed Unemployment Rate of the Population Aged from 25 to 59(%)" was 4.1%.
The overall unemployment rate was 5.2%.

This site references the same data, but provides better visual charts:
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/youth-unemployment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/unemployment-rate

[–] Rapidcreek@reddthat.com 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The sluggish pace of growth in 2023 is piling pressure on Beijing to reignite an expansion that is in danger of fizzling out as consumers refrain from spending and exports slump. A drawn-out real estate crunch and shaky local-government finances are compounding the gloom. More than a fifth of Chinese age 16 to 24 are out of work.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-economy-barely-grows-as-recovery-fades-5652a92a?mod=hp_lead_pos1

[–] RoomAndBored@hexbear.net 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thank you for the citation. The issue here is that 'out of work' is not a very useful phrase. Taken at face value, it just means not working and is not necessarily synonymous with unemployment in the way economists use it (i.e. actively looking for work but unable to find it).

This is possibly why queermunist expressed confusion about whether it included students. At first blanch, a ~20% unemployment rate does sound high.

I did turn up a useful SCMP article which highlights:

Since 2018, China has used a monthly survey-based unemployment rate as its main indicator. The data captures all regular urban residents, does not include an upper age limit and the [National Bureau of Statistics] claims it also includes migrant workers...

... to be considered unemployed, a worker needs to have been actively looking for a job in the past three months and be able to start work within two weeks; otherwise, [they are] not counted as employed or unemployed.

I'd like to refer back to the CNBC article (also using a 21.3% unemployment rate for 16 - 24 bracket) which notes that the unemployment for the graduate cohort appears to be temporary rather than structural. It's not an enviable position to be in, definitely, but I wouldn't say it's at the point where students will demonstrate en masse like you suggested.

[–] what_is_a_name@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No. School is “work” in that statistic.

[–] Dran_Arcana@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah I was going to say that seemed like a weird range to cherry pick. I have to imagine the 16-17 crowd in the US is like, 25-50% employed at best, and that's 2/9. 5-6/9 in that range are school age if you count college.

I wonder what that looks like for the US

[–] BlackKong@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

it's 7.5% for the US and 13.9% for the Euro zone. India, which has a similar population to China is at 17.9% which is so much lower than I would have imagined.