Trials of job

29 January 2015 By John Foley Follow @johnsfoley

For a country that says employment is its top priority, China’s jobs data is surprisingly unhelpful. Besides the 47 million or so official unemployed, many more are stranded in unproductive or unnecessary posts. That’s bad for growth. Fixing it requires reformist elbow grease.

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China’s unemployment rate is around 5.1 percent, according to the national statistics bureau on Jan. 21. Based on a working-age population of 916 million people at the end of 2014, that suggests 47 million are jobless.

The country’s GDP increased by 7.4 percent in 2014, the slowest in 24 years. Fixed asset investment grew at 15.7 percent, the lowest rate of increase in a decade.

China added 13.2 million urban jobs in 2014, according to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. On a net basis, it added 10.7 million, compared with a peak of 13.4 million in 2010.

Industrial profits fell 8 percent in December year on year, compared with 4.2 percent in November, according to official data released on Jan. 27. For the whole of 2014, profits increased by 3.3 percent.

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