China employment steady despite Donald Trump’s claim US trade war cost country ‘3 million jobs’
- Statistics agency says China created 10.97 million jobs in the first nine months of this year, or 99.7 per cent of the government's full-year target
- But independent analysts question if official monthly data underestimates the true unemployment situation
China’s employment situation is holding steady despite claims by US President Donald Trump that China has lost 3 million jobs as a consequence of the trade war, data released on Friday showed.
China created 10.97 million new jobs in the first nine months of this year, or 99.7 per cent of the full-year target of 11 million, according to the country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The figure comes despite the country’s headline gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the third quarter slowing to 6.0 per cent, the lower end of the government’s 2019 target.
China’s surveyed jobless rate was 5.2 per cent at the end of September, unchanged from the end of August, while its migrant workforce stayed relatively steady at 183.36 million, a slight increase from 182.48 million at the end of June, according to the NBS.
China’s employment situation was stable despite an economic slowdown because overall the economy is growing and each percentage point of growth meant more jobs than before, said Mao Shengyong, a spokesman for the statistics agency.
Mao did not mention Trump directly, but the figures appear to debunk the US leader’s claim in August this year that China has lost 3 million jobs because of his tariff war and that the situation would only get worse.