China’s economic data breakdowns show signs of life amid prevailing doom-and-gloom outlook

Name: Is youth joblessness worsening in China? Beijing’s official figures offering fewer clues
Uploaded: 2023-09-14T22:00:17.000Z
Duration: 5 min 18 s
Description: Is youth joblessness worsening in China? Beijing’s official figures offering fewer clues

Economists say alternative high-frequency data points – from subway ridership to commodity prices – suggest parts of China’s economy are functioning well

Economic downturn seen shrinking nation’s middle class, but while some say China may not be in a crisis, its economy is ‘not out of the woods, yet’

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China faces a difficult path toward economic recovery, but some data suggests that elements of the nation’s economy are improving. Illustration: Henry Wong

Ji Siqiin Beijing

Published: 6:00am, 15 Sep 2023Updated: 9:37am, 15 Sep 2023

As the hits kept coming, marring China’s battered businesses with fresh bruises over the past month, the discourse surrounding an economic crisis grew louder, and the headlines more prominent.

International banks lowered their annual growth forecasts for the world’s second-largest economy; the yuan’s rate against the US dollar kept falling; Beijing suspended the release of dismal youth-unemployment figures; and the country’s largest private property developer, Country Garden, warned that it is on the brink of default.

Mistrust from the public and overseas investors over Beijing’s official narrative is also growing, even as Beijing has repeatedly vowed to crack down on statistical fraud.

But despite the negative sentiment, some economists point to alternative high-frequency data points – from subway ridership to commodity prices – that suggest many parts of China’s economy are functioning well.

However, data on the real estate sector – the single biggest contributor to the country’s economy, as it constitutes about 30 per cent of GDP – still points to no meaningful improvement, despite rounds of stimulus policies from Beijing, they said.

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Is youth joblessness worsening in China? Beijing’s official figures offering fewer clues

“The bottom line is that China’s economy is not out of the woods, yet. But it’s not in crisis, either,” said Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie.

He said growth remains lacklustre due to the drag from property and weak confidence, while high-frequency data suggests that the economy has stabilised at a low level.