China's overall employment situation remained stable in 2024, with the unemployment rate for young people continuously decreasing in the past four months, thanks to the government's supportive policies and effective job promotion measures.
The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said on Tuesday that about 12.56 million people landed jobs in urban areas in 2024, and the average surveyed unemployment rate for the year was kept at around 5.1 percent, down 0.1 percentage point year-on-year.
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The latest figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that the surveyed unemployment rate for people age 16 to 24 dropped continuously since September, hitting 15.7 percent in December. The rate had reached a high point of 18.8 percent in August due to the surging influx of fresh graduates to the job market.
The NBS said that people between the ages of 25 and 29 saw their surveyed unemployment rate drop to 6.6 percent in December, which was 0.1 percentage point lower than the figure for November. Neither of those calculations included people of that age group who were still in school.
The employment progress was the result of the government's financial incentives to employers, supportive policies for young entrepreneurs and more precise and efficient job services for job seekers, especially those having difficulties in landing jobs due to health or financial problems, observers said.
Chen Yongjia, an official of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said: "We launched a number of policies for youths last year to encourage them to land grassroots jobs or work at small and medium-sized companies. And over 2 million college graduates received financial allowances from the ministry last year."
Chen added that the ministry allocated more than 100 billion yuan ($13.8 billion) in employment subsidies to individuals and employers last year.
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In addition, employment promotion programs and job fairs organized by the ministry achieved good results. The just-completed job promotion program that began on Dec 1 attracted about 251,000 employers nationwide, offering 4.77 million job openings.
About 135,000 online and 4,892 on-site job fairs were organized during the month, and 585,000 college graduates were offered jobs, according to the ministry.
The ministry also said it will continue to optimize policies that promote employment in 2025 and develop new growth points for employment by issuing stronger supportive fiscal, financial and industrial policies. More preferential treatment such as tax reductions and low-interest loans will be given to employers to stabilize the job market.
Wang Pingping, a senior official at the NBS, said that although China faces a more complicated landscape globally, as well as growing numbers of college graduates domestically, the nation's job market will remain stable, thanks to the improving economy and supportive government policies.
