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China suspends youth jobless data after record high readings (www.reuters.com)

submitted 1 year ago by u_tamtam@programming.dev to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

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[-] ElHexo@hexbear.net 49 points 1 year ago

National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Fu Linghui on Tuesday said the release of the data would be suspended from August as the way the jobless rate was calculated needed to be improved to reflect the changing society.

He said there were 65 million students in the 16-24 age group and it was questionable whether they should be included in the unemployment figures before they graduated.

On the face of it, this seems quite reasonable.

You would expect that youth unemployment would capture the young people in the labour force, i.e. the number of people actually looking to work.

[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 26 points 1 year ago

No, every student should have three jobs and a mortgage. Anything else proves the economy is in shambles!

[-] lowleveldata@programming.dev 15 points 1 year ago

Just publish two numbers that includes / excludes students?

[-] ElHexo@hexbear.net 14 points 1 year ago

The next question that comes to mind is - you know the number of students, deduct that from your percentage and you're done.

The answer is probably that labour force data like this is usually collected through surveys of samples of the population, while the enrolment data would be collected from educational institutions.

[-] DankXiaobong@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago

It gets even more reasonable if you read the full quote from Fu Linghui, which Reuters decided to omit..

Not sure if you read it already, but you're absolutely right deng-salute

"The college students put their focus on gaining knowledge at campuses while the public holds different opinions on whether we should include these college students in employment analysis before their graduation. Also, we need research to extend the age period of defining 'youths' as the young people are now having longer schooling years," he added.

2023-08-15 NBS suspends release of youth unemployment rate - China Daily

[-] awwwyissss@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago

Go back to Hexbear, we don't want your soulless, authoritarian propaganda.

[-] Ubermeisters@lemmy.zip 13 points 1 year ago

I hate this bullshit me versus them attitude everybody's bringing over from Reddit.

Did you stop to consider that just because somebody is a member of an instance doesn't necessarily mean they are part of the issues with the instance. I didn't go stalk this users comments or posts but it seems egregious to just see 'hexbear' and assume that user is on par with your concerns.

I'm part of lemmy.zip, which as I understand it, has a lot more trans folks than other instances. Does that make me trans? Yes: by your bullshit preliminary assumption policy. Meanwhile, I'm not.

[-] zephyreks@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago

People love clans and segregation.

[-] steltek@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

It's not just the redditors bringing the labels and hexbears are also effectively recently arrived, having updated their server.

[-] faintedheart@lemm.ee 39 points 1 year ago

Modern problems require modern solutions. They deleted the data. Now unemployment disappeared. Also the people who posted the data.

[-] ElHexo@hexbear.net 12 points 1 year ago

Sweden has a slightly higher youth unemployment rate and they are only counting the actual labour force, i.e. people actively willing to work and not students.

I think it's a bit silly to suggest that the Chinese government killed a bunch of statisticians at the National Bureau of Statistics for publishing this data that's actually not as bad as you might in English language news sources.

[-] faintedheart@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

I think it's a bit silly to suggest that the Chinese government killed a bunch of statisticians at the National Bureau of Statistics for publishing this data that's actually not as bad as you might in English language news sources.

That was a joke. I know China is not exactly like what the english news channel portrays.

[-] boredtortoise@lemm.ee 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Nooo they wouldn't do that¡ Didn't people say here that the numbers are western fabrications

The new numbers will be the best numbers ever

[-] FatTony@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

Literally 1984 (no really, that's in the book)

[-] boredtortoise@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago

Ministry of Truth has the best numbers

[-] YaaAsantewaa 24 points 1 year ago

Turns out having dictators run your country is bad for the economy

[-] ElHexo@hexbear.net 26 points 1 year ago

On a year-on-year basis, GDP expanded 6.3% in the second quarter, accelerating from 4.5% in the first three months of the year, but the rate was below the forecast for growth of 7.3%.

You're suggesting that China is very democratic then?

[-] MultigrainCerealista@hexbear.net 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It is though. You can look at so many measures from perception of democracy among the citizens, the degree to which power is devolved to the local level most answerable to the community, and the turnover of elected officials being far higher than western democracies which usually feature politicians with what amounts to lifelong tenure.

People actually think China is still run the way it was back in the 1960s because their world view is formed from memes. It’s a democracy and a more vibrant one than what we usually see in the west.

But someone will reply to this with a meme about social credit without realizing they don’t earn Reddit gold here.

[-] lumpiangshawarma@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The 1960s-1976 one was more democratic imo

[-] Lemmygradwontallowme@hexbear.net 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Wait an effing minute, unrelated, but by your name, are you Filipino expat in the middle east or something?

[-] lumpiangshawarma@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago

Mahilig lang ako sa shawarma hahaha

Probinsiya girlie

[-] Lemmygradwontallowme@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago

Oh, akala ko ganyan...

[-] flipht@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

This. The US has been doing social credit for decades. We just call it regular credit because we don't care about your antisocial personality tendencies as long as you can keep a job and spend the money you earn. Just a question of priorities.

Social credit is a terrible system. But we have similar stuff - job references, landlords checking your history, etc. The US often has the things we deride others for - we just obfuscat and abstract it. Bread lines -> EBT, etc.

[-] zephyreks@programming.dev 13 points 1 year ago

The US government is structured such that, although it operates as a democracy, you don't feel like you have that much control over how the government operates.

The US wants to invade Iraq? Alrighty then. California wants to dump $100 billion into a single rail line? Sure. Boston wants to defund transit until it literally catches on fire? Why not. Across every level of government, you're sort of left wondering who they're listening to.

[-] ElHexo@hexbear.net 7 points 1 year ago

I particularly enjoyed when the parliamentarian when brought out to kill the $15 minimum wage proposal being included in a Bill, leading to many Americans finding out they had the parliamentarian in the first place.

[-] Dee@lemmings.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I have a bunch of lemmygrad and hexbear accounts blocked so I can't see the other replies to your comment but I bet it's a whataboutism against the US, isn't it?

Edit: lmao the downvotes tell me, yes, it's just whataboutism against the US because that's all they ever have to offer.

[-] ZILtoid1991@kbin.social 21 points 1 year ago

They should just do the same as Hungary: only count the "jobseekers", and disregard people from that list if they can't secure a job for too long. (Did happen to me in Hungary, except I was registered as a participant of the government humiliating "public employment" program, except I neither got the 8 hour job, nor the half the minimum wage.)

[-] Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

That’s literally how the US does it. If you include all the people who gave up and left the workforce, as well as all the unhoused people who are also purposefully excluded from unemployment rolls, suddenly we don’t have the “record low unemployment” they keep claiming we have.

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 16 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

BEIJING, Aug 15 (Reuters) - China's statistics bureau said on Tuesday it had suspended publication of youth jobless data, citing the need to improve methodology in the way it measured unemployment among young people, which has hit record highs in recent months.

The decision announced shortly after the release of weaker-than-expected factory and retail sales data sparked a rare backlash on social media amid growing frustration about employment prospects in the country.

Young Chinese are facing their toughest summer job-hunting season after regulatory clamp-downs in recent years left traditional sources of graduate employment -- including the property, tech and education sectors -- bruised.

The most recent NBS data on youth unemployment, published last month, showed the jobless rate jumping to a record high of 21.3% in June.

The NBS's decision was immediately mocked on Chinese social media, with a related hashtag receiving over 10 million views on microblogging site Weibo.

A Chinese professor last month said the country's true youth jobless rate may have been closer to 50% in March, in rare public comments about the matter published in an article for financial magazine Caixin.

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