This week, China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced it would cease collecting data on youth unemployment. The news came after nearly a decade of poor job prospects for Chinese people ages 16-24, often reported on by international media as mainly a problem affecting recent college graduates. Earlier this summer, ChinaFile’s Jessica Batke spoke with sociologist Eli Friedman, who studies international labor, about the reasons for joblessness among China’s young people and how it is covered.
Jessica Batke: If you’re graduating right now in China, if you’re coming on the labor market, what do you see in front of you? What are you worried about?
Eli Friedman: Well, you’d be worried about getting a job! That structural reality is very much at the forefront of what college graduates in China are thinking about, and it is a big change from much of the past…
