China’s Youth Unemployment Rate Rises to 17.9% as Graduates Flood Job Market

China’s economy has remained weak in recent years, while unemployment has continued to rise. According to the latest official data, the youth unemployment rate for the 16-24 age group rose to 17.9 percent in July, up 3 percentage points from the previous month.

It was the highest level since August 2025 and, according to Chinese financial media, the highest July reading in three years, Reuters reported.

On Aug. 19, the Chinese Communist Party’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released unemployment data broken down by age group for July. Among the urban population aged 16 to 24, excluding students, the unemployment rate was 17.9 percent. For those aged 25 to 29, it was 7.2 percent, while the rate for those aged 30 to 59 was 3.9 percent, according to China Daily. 

Compared with the 14.9 percent annual low recorded in June, the 16-to-24 youth unemployment rate jumped three percentage points in July. Reuters described the July figure as an 11-month high. The increase also reflects the seasonal pressure that typically occurs in July and August as large numbers of university graduates enter the labor market. 

The latest data show that China’s surveyed urban unemployment rate rose to 5.2 percent in July, up 0.2 percentage points from the previous month. According to Xiong Yuan, chief economist at Guosheng Securities, the month-on-month increase was slightly above the seasonal norm. From 2019 to 2025, the average increase in July was 0.1 percentage point, suggesting that employment pressure increased marginally more than usual this July. 

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July is also the period when large numbers of university graduates enter the labor market. Last July, China’s youth unemployment rate was 17.8 percent, rising further to 18.9 percent in August, the highest level over the following year.

The number of graduates from China’s regular higher-education institutions is expected to reach 12.7 million in 2026, an increase of 480,000 from 2025. Combined with previous graduates who remain unemployed, overseas returnees, and people who failed postgraduate or civil-service entrance examinations, this has significantly intensified pressure on the labor market during the summer job-hunting season, the South China Morning Post reported. 

Analysts argue that the official figures do not fully capture the actual scale of unemployment in China. People who give up looking for work after failing to find a job, as well as those who survive by delivering food, driving for ride-hailing platforms, or doing casual or temporary work, are not necessarily fully reflected in the headline unemployment figure.

Over the past two years, the CCP has frequently used terms such as “new forms of employment,” “flexible employment,” and “slow employment” to describe employment conditions, which critics say can downplay the reality of unemployment and underemployment.

The official definition of “flexible employment” is work undertaken for the purpose of earning wages or business income for at least one hour per week. Ride-hailing drivers, couriers, food-delivery workers, livestreamers, domestic-service workers and others can therefore fall into this category.

The “2025 China Blue-Collar Employment Research Report” estimates that the number of people classified by the authorities as being in “flexible employment” could reach 320 million. Using China’s total employment figure of 725 million at the end of 2025, that would mean more than 44 percent of employed people were in flexible employment.

China’s blue-collar employment

According to Taiwan’s Commercial Times, the China New Forms of Employment Research Center, jointly established by Capital University of Economics and Business and the China Association for Employment Promotion, released the “2025 China Blue-Collar Employment Research Report” in June. Caixin also reported on the study, saying researchers analyzed 28,450 valid survey samples and used multiple sources of data and field research to examine the latest employment conditions and structural changes affecting China’s blue-collar workforce.

According to the report, the number of people in flexible employment in China surpassed 200 million in 2021 and has grown rapidly over the past two years, increasing by about 40 million people annually. The number reached 240 million in 2024 and 280 million in 2025, and is expected to rise further to 320 million this year.

The report estimates that China’s blue-collar workforce will total approximately 427 million people in 2025. The number of domestic-service workers increased by four percent year-on-year to 46.8 million, while the number of food-delivery workers rose six percent to 15.9 million.

According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the country had 725.04 million employed people at the end of 2025. The NBS also reported that 851.36 million people were between the ages of 16 and 59, accounting for 60.6 percent of the population. Separately, International Labour Organization estimates published by the World Bank put China’s labor-force participation rate at about 64.6 percent in 2025. Cross-referencing the official employment figure with the 2025 China Blue-Collar Employment Research Report’s projection of 320 million flexible workers in 2026, flexible employment would be equivalent to roughly 44.1 percent of China’s total employed population.

Surveys by other research institutions and media outlets indicate that the proportion of flexible workers with college-level education or higher has been rising year by year. Large numbers of white-collar workers and university graduates who had originally hoped to enter industries such as IT, real estate, finance, and the internet have instead moved into lower-barrier sectors—including food delivery, ride-hailing, and livestreaming—because of unemployment and the contraction of the job market.

Overseas internet users commented

“Strictly speaking, flexible employment is basically unemployment, because under the current reality, full-time jobs require insurance contributions under the tax rules, so they wouldn’t be classified as flexible employment.”

“If they’re unemployed, just call it unemployment. Why insist on calling it flexible employment? In reality, they’re worried that they won’t be able to maintain their political power.”

“When they admit that there are 300 million people in flexible employment, it means the actual number must be even higher.”

“If you add unemployed people in rural areas, who knows how many millions—or even billions—it would amount to.”

Meanwhile, China’s General Administration of Customs recently released data showing that the country’s trade surplus reached US$112.5 billion in July, marking the third consecutive month in which the surplus exceeded US$100 billion. Some observers expect the strong export performance to help China’s economy recover.

However, independent media commentator Li Houchen, who has long followed China’s political economy, said in an interview with a China Radio program that of the “three engines” supporting China’s economy, the two major engines of investment and consumption have both stalled, leaving exports to fight alone. 

Even though China’s export figures continue to hit record highs, he argued, exports account for too small a share of GDP to rescue the Chinese economy on their own.