Major Taiwanese news network Liberty Times Network (LTN) recently reported that Mainland media have given heavy coverage to the news of the first quarter GDP growth rate of 6.4 percent, which was better than expected. However, the unemployment rate for the same period of time was reported at a half-decade low. Thus the economic rebound appears to be an illusion. In the past years, after the Chinese New Year, China’s unemployment rate typically went down since many workers returned to work and a large number of college graduates joined the workforce. However, according to the latest study by the China Institute for Employment Research (CIER), the national unemployment situation is getting worse and the market is seeing a lot more job applicants (with a year-over-year increase of 31 percent) with substantially fewer job offerings (with a year-over-year decline of 11 percent. The gap is the widest since 2014, and it has been on the decline for six consecutive quarters. Even with a decent stock market rebound in the first quarter, the financial sector jobs still saw a year-over-year decline of 39.7 percent.
Source: LTN, April 22, 2019
https://ec.ltn.com.tw/article/breakingnews/2766439