Official Surveyed Rate
5.1%
NBS Headline Metric
Composite Labor Slack Index
9.42%
+4.32 pp structural gap
Youth Effective Joblessness
18.6%
16–24 age bracket
Hours-Adjusted Rate
7.85%
Equivalent full-time jobless
Labor Slack Gap Decomposition Bridge
Percentage Points (% of Urban Labor Force)
Demographic & Institutional Slack Matrix
Labor Force Breakdown (470M Total Urban Pool)
Urban Resident Hukou172.5M Pool
4.3%
Higher institutional security & state-sector absorption.
Rural Migrant Workers297.5M Pool
6.8%
14.2M underemployed / returned.
16–24 Youth Cohort98.0M Pool
18.6%
11.8M annual graduate cohort competition.
25–59 Prime-Age372.0M Pool
4.1%
Core industrial & service workforce baseline.
Primary Slack Driver: Youth job-search threshold & rural buffer exclusion
China's surveyed urban unemployment rate treats anyone working at least 1 hour during the reference week as fully employed, and excludes unemployed migrant workers who returned to rural villages. Relaxing these statistical assumptions expands the true labor market slack to 9.42%.