New college graduates attend a job fair in Chengdu city, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, on July 2, 2023. A total of 11,547 positions were offered by 405 employers at the fair, which attracted 11,170 job seekers, and more than 2,630 employment intentions were initially reached. Photo: VCG

China will suspend releasing jobless data for the youth starting from August, as labor market statistics work needs improvement amid economic and social development, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Tuesday.

"Along with social and economic development, our statistics work and the survey and statistics of labor force need to undergo continuous improvement," Fu Linghui, spokesperson of the NBS, said at a press conference.

Among urban areas, the number of students on campus continues to expand. In 2022, the country's young population aged between 16 and 24 exceeded 96 million, of these, over 65 million were students. Since their main task is mastering knowledge, there are different views on whether students starting to look for jobs before graduation should be included in labor force survey, Fu said.

In addition, along with the improvement of the education level of Chinese people, the time that young people spend at school increased. This phenomenon needs further study to better categorize data according to age in labor force survey and statistics, he said.

"The NBS will carry out an in-depth study on these issues and further improve labor survey and statistics to better reflect the country's employment situation," Fu said.

Global Times