Xi Wants More Jobs For Youth, Migrant Workers

There’s need to create high-quality and sufficient jobs for college graduates and migrant workers, China’s President Xi Jinping has said. Xi’s remarks come against the backdrop of a fragile recovery in the world’s second-largest economy. Complicating matters are a severe property crisis, local government debt risks and increasing geopolitical uncertainties. And all these have cascading effects on job security, income growth and consumer spending.

“(We should) insist that employment of young people including college graduates is top priority,” the Xinhua reported Xi as saying at a group study session of the Politburo, the highest decision-making body of the ruling Communist Party.

The Xinhua report didn’t give details on job promotion support measures or plans.

The survey-based jobless rate for 16-24 year-olds, excluding college students, was 14.7% in April, down from 15.3% in March, official data showed last week.

China’s statistics bureau revised its methodology by removing college students from the survey pool after the youth jobless rate surged to around 20% last year.

Xi also said the government should take steps to promote the employment of migrant workers, guide them to return to their hometowns and for people to start businesses in the countryside.

He called for stabilising the income of people who had been lifted out of poverty and preventing large-scale return to poverty due to unemployment, Xinhua said. Companies and industries with strong job creation capabilities will be supported, the report said.

China created 4.36 million new urban jobs in the first four months, human resources ministry data showed, 36% of its annual job creation target.

With inputs from Reuters