As China’s ‘employment problems’ mount, Premier Li vows to create jobs, ward off poverty

With migrant workers in mind, leadership is looking to ‘ensure there’s no large-scale relapse into poverty’

Reading Time:2 minutes

Jobseekers attend a job fair held in China’s Ningxia Hui autonomous region on February 15. More than 200 enterprises from a variety of industries, including new energy, biotechnology and e-commerce, were offering more than 4,000 positions. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 10:00am, 6 Mar 2025Updated: 11:20am, 6 Mar 2025

China has vowed to keep its urban jobless rate around 5.5 per cent this year while striving to prevent those at the lowest economic rung of society from falling back into poverty, in an effort to mitigate social-stability risks.

The Chinese government wants the economy to create more than 12 million new urban jobs in 2025 while facing “more pronounced structural employment problems”, Premier Li Qiang said in his annual work report to China’s top legislature, the National People’s Congress, on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the country must “ensure there’s no large-scale relapse into poverty” amid macroeconomic challenges, the report said. President Xi Jinping declared in 2021 that extreme poverty had been eradicated.

Calling employment the “cornerstone of people’s livelihood”, Li repeated his sentiment from two years prior, when he kicked off his premiership by vowing to “continue to pursue an employment-first strategy”.

Beijing’s annual job-creation target for urban areas has remained unchanged since 2023. In the five years prior to that, it had been 11 million, excluding 2020.

Li said China is seeking to create opportunities amid the application of new technologies, and to support migrant workers and those who have been pulled out of poverty.

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x