Commentary
For years the world stood in awe at the number of science and engineering degrees earned at Chinese universities. Now it seems China cannot find meaningful work for these graduates.
Youth unemployment has gone off the charts. Matters are so severe that it threatens the economy’s growth potential, even the social contract between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese people–to deliver prosperity in return for the party’s ruling monopoly.
The situation has reached extremes. In April, the latest month for which data are available, the urban unemployment rate for people between the ages of 16 and 24 rose above 20 percent, exceeding the former high of 19.9 percent in 2022 during the worst of the pandemic lockdowns. The youth unemployment rate now stands at almost four times the nation’s overall unemployment rate of 5.2 percent. And this ugly reading fails to account for the millions set to graduate from universities and high schools this spring. The measured unemployment rate also understates the pain in another way as well….