Original title: National Bureau of Statistics: Urban surveyed unemployment rate of labor force aged 16-24 (excluding students in school) has declined for four consecutive months

China Youth Daily Client, Beijing, January 17 (China Youth Daily·China Youth Network Intern Reporter Zhao Limei Reporter Zhang Junbin) "Employment is the foundation of people's livelihood and the source of income." Today, at a press conference held by the State Information Office, Fu Linghui, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics and Director of the Department of Comprehensive Statistics of the National Economics, introduced that with the end of the graduation season, the employment pressure of the young people has been alleviated after July 2024. In December 2024, the urban surveyed unemployment rate of labor force aged 16-24, which did not include students in school, fell by 0.4 percentage points compared with the previous month, and it has declined for four consecutive months.

Fu Linghui said that from the overall situation, the national urban surveyed unemployment rate in 2024 has steadily decreased, and the average national urban surveyed unemployment rate in 2024 was 5.1%, down 0.1 percentage point from the previous year. From a quarterly perspective, the four quarters of 2024 were 5.2%, 5.0%, 5.2% and 5.0%, respectively, and remained basically stable overall. The urban surveyed unemployment rate in 2024 was 5.1%, which has been at a relatively low level in recent years, and also shows that the employment situation has remained basically stable overall.

"From the perspective of key groups, the employment situation of major key groups has improved, such as migrant workers, young people, and people with employment difficulties, overall employment trends have shown an improvement trend." Fu Linghui introduced that from the perspective of migrant workers, in 2024, the average urban surveyed unemployment rate of foreign agricultural household registration labor force was 4.6%, a decrease of 0.3 percentage points from 2023. The total number of migrant workers increased by 2.2 million in 2024, an increase of 0.7%. From the perspective of groups with employment difficulties, as of the end of 2024, the number of people who have been lifted out of poverty in the country exceeded 33 million, exceeding the annual target task, and exceeding 30 million for four consecutive years.

Fu Linghui said that in the past year, the economy has indeed faced some difficulties, but the ability to maintain stability in employment mainly comes from the expansion of the total economic volume, which inevitably requires corresponding increase in employment. At the same time, the employment capacity of the service industry is relatively large, and the service industry has played a very important role in the stability of employment in recent years. In 2024, the proportion of my country's service industry in GDP continued to increase, an increase of 0.4 percentage points over the previous year, and the proportion of the service industry in GDP reached 56.7%. Judging from the average annual employment in the service industry, the number of people employed in 2024 increased by more than 7 million compared with the previous year. Among them, the number of employment in industries such as wholesale and retail, accommodation and catering, information transmission, leasing and business services has increased significantly. In addition to the expansion of the total economic output and the growth of employment capacity in the service industry, the continued efforts of employment priority policies have played an important role in stabilizing the employment situation.

Fu Linghui also proposed that we must indeed see that we are facing some challenges in the current economic operation, and the structural contradictions in employment are relatively prominent. Employment of some groups such as young people does face difficulties and pressures, and it still requires efforts to stabilize employment.

In this regard, the Central Economic Work Conference specifically emphasized "focusing on goal-oriented approach, and focusing on achieving an optimized combination of stable growth, stable employment and reasonable rebound in prices." Fu Linghui pointed out that in the next stage, to achieve such a goal, we must place the promotion of high-quality and full employment in a more prominent position, implement employment support plans for key areas, key industries, urban and rural grassroots and small and medium-sized enterprises, promote employment for key groups, and ensure the overall stability of the overall employment situation.