China jobs: How young graduates and universities are really coping with elevated unemployment

With a record 11.79 million students expected to graduate from Chinese universities this year, where the nation’s army of young jobseekers is enlisting their services has become an outsized concern at a time when the nation’s post-pandemic recovery is slow and jobs remain scarce.

Youth unemployment surged to new heights in the first half of 2023. Officially, surveys showed that more than one in five of those aged 16-24 in China were deemed unemployed from April to June. Then suddenly, authorities decided a recalibration was in order and chose not to release the monthly rate from July to November.