Lu Feng: How can you deal with the high unemployment rate of youth?

The youth group is not only relatively compared to the entire labor force

Facing higher employment pressure

And in recent years, pressure is higher than the overall unemployment rate

Relators also rise in fluctuations

Affected by multiple factors superimposed, the current employment situation in China is in a very complicated and difficult situation.

In April and May of 2022, the unemployment rate of job seekers aged 16 to 24 was soaring. In April, the youth unemployment rate jumped sharply from 16 % in March this year to 18.2 %, setting the highest record since the indicator announced in January 2018, and about 14 % at the end of last year. The youth unemployment rate in May was also at a high of 18.4 %. At present, this indicator in China is significantly higher than the level of the United States and the European Union.

Because most of the young job applicants are colleges and vocational school graduates. Considering seasonal factors, the unemployment rate may rise further from July to August this year, and it will fall significantly by the end of this year and early next year.

At present, the significant increase in employment pressure of youth is promoted by many factors. During the epidemic period, the survey rate of urban surveys in China fell from 6.2 % in February 2020 to 4.9 % at the end of the third quarter of 2021. Since then, the unemployment rate has bottomed out. %. The survey rate of 31 large cities soared to 6.7 % in April, far exceeding the 5.9 % peak since the indicator was announced in 2013.

Studies have shown that the youth groups have not only faced higher employment pressures compared to the entire labor force, but also have higher pressure in recent years that the overall unemployment rate has also risen in fluctuations. In addition to the overall unemployment rate of youth unemployment rates at the same time, a ratio indicator can be obtained. The value of the indicator is generally greater than 1.18 by the structural characteristics of the youth in the labor market. About 3, significantly higher than the 2.0 to 2.5 range in 2018.

Most of the young young job seekers aged 16 to 24 are all kinds of schools, especially college graduates. This year, the scale of Chinese college graduates hit a record high, reaching 10.76 million. The improvement of quality, at the same time, also means that the demand for jobs has increased densely in the short term, which brings "flood discharge effects" and puts pressure on young employment.

From the perspective of the laws of economics, the employment situation is related to the macroeconomic stages. The current macroeconomic growth is not as good as expected to be a key reason for employment situation. Due to the impact of the epidemic, economic growth in recent years is generally lower than the potential growth rate. The local epidemic in March and April this year has repeatedly fell or even increased some economic indicators, exacerbating the pressure of young people with the existence of the existence. According to a report issued by relevant agencies, in the first quarter, on average, China only provided by a graduate job seeker with only 0.71, which obviously had unbalanced relationships.

Another factors affecting the employment situation of the youth is that the new generation of rural households' job seekers no longer have the characteristics of switching between the two types of occupations of agriculture and non -agricultural workers, farmers and workers, or " The youth job seekers who are the main body of the Z era have generally "went to migrant industrialization". This change itself is a manifestation of the progress of the times, but in the environment that faces the shortage of staged positions, it will also objectively increase supply and demand to adjust rigidity and employment pressure.

In the past 40 years, China has encountered severe employment challenges brought about by Zhiqing's return to the city, the restructuring of state -owned enterprises, and the global financial crisis. It has been resolved quickly through reforms such as reforms, counter -cycle macro -control, and employment promotion policies. In response to the current tricky youth employment situation, we must adhere to the basic way to allocate the market as the allocation of resources, combine short-term and long-term policies, and comprehensively adopt reform-macro-structural measures.

First of all, we must strengthen active employment and promote policy efforts, and the government, enterprises, universities, and individuals are coexisting together. For example, the government can come up with some resources to establish a certain period of internship jobs with enterprises to reduce the initial running costs of some young people entering the workplace. The government can also subsidize the establishment of a temporary job job to help young people get opportunities for transitional arrangements to enter the workplace. When adopting short -term intervention measures, we must pay attention to the principle of marketization, respect young people's job demands and willingness, and improve the sustainability of short -term rescue measures and their long -term target compatibility.

Higher educational institutions need to strengthen employment counseling and support, actively help enterprises and employers to promote them, provide related services such as extended retention file time for some graduates that are difficult to employment for the time being, and the impact of smooth employment difficulties on graduates. Guide graduation students to take a practical look at the employment situation and adjust the job search goals flexibly. Early entering the workplace, through the training and improvement of the middle school education, and realizing occupations and career demands in stages.

Improve the matching of education systems and high -quality development now, reduce the natural unemployment rate or prevent and control its trend increase. Encourage universities to provide more general education in curriculum settings, so that the human capital of the new generation of graduates is more flexible. In response to the low proportion of unemployment relief funds, reduce the procedural restriction threshold to receive unemployment relief funds, and expand the inclusiveness of unemployment relief and the role of people's livelihood.

Steady growth is the prerequisite for employment.Faced with the recent "triple pressure" of the macroeconomics that have been increasing, we must use enough currency and fiscal policy tools to choose from: existing policies to accelerate the implementation of implementation, design and introduce the incremental policy as soon as possible, improve the optimization of epidemic prevention and control policies, consolidate development recentlyThe macroeconomic margin improvement situation provides support for the stability of employment.In the long run, it is necessary to deepen reform and eliminate institutional and policy factors that suppress endogenous growth vitality, fully release the potential, and provide more high -quality jobs.To strengthen supervision measures, we need to pay more attention to the adoption of the rule of law procedures in the long run, take into account the compatibility of and the compatibility of growth and employment goals, and avoid adverse effects on growth and employment objectively.

(The author is a professor at the National Development Research Institute of Peking University)

Send 2022.6.27 Total Issue 1049 "China News Weekly"

Magazine Title: How can you respond to the high unemployment rate?

Author: Lu Feng

Edit: Wang Xiaoxia

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