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Xinyi Wu

China’s urban youth unemployment rose last month, as a record influx of university graduates struggles to find work in a job market weighed down by weak domestic demand and the growing adoption of artificial intelligence.
The jobless rate for those aged 16 to 24, excluding students, rose to 18.9 per cent in August from 17.9 per cent in July, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Thursday.
This figure, as well as the identical number from August last year, represents the highest reading since Beijing revised its calculation methodology to exclude students in 2023, following a peak of 21.3 per cent under the old rubric reported in June of that year.
A record 12.7 million university students were estimated to have graduated this summer, entering a labour market already weakened by slowing economic momentum. While the rise in youth unemployment is partly seasonal, anxiety is growing over the threat that the emerging adoption of AI poses to entry-level roles.
Zhang Lin, a recent software engineering graduate from a university in Tianjin, said she had spent over a month searching for work in the southern tech hub of Shenzhen to no avail. She attributed her difficulty partly to AI, which she suspected had reduced entry-level coding roles and heightened competition.
“For certain tasks, AI doesn’t just write code faster than you, but it writes it better, too,” Zhang said.
She said she had sent out over a hundred applications and messages to recruiters, but the vast majority had gone unanswered. Even when she did secure a response, intense competition often cut the process short.


In one instance, she began a work trial with an e-commerce company only to be told on her second day that a candidate who had tested earlier in the week had just been hired for the position.
“The job market is really not great,” Zhang said. “There are too many people competing for a single role.”
Around 7.5 per cent of the jobs held by workers aged 15 to 29 in East Asia are in occupations highly exposed to AI, according to a report published by the International Labour Organization last month.
If just 10 per cent of those positions disappeared, the region would see 1.5 million young people face unemployment, shift into another job, or leave the workforce entirely, the UN agency said.
Chinese authorities have expanded vocational education and technical training to address workforce mismatches, but some jobseekers – like Zhang – remain sceptical that additional qualifications will improve their prospects.
“I just have to keep applying,” Zhang said. “The priority is to land a job, earn a living and regain my momentum.”
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for those aged 25 to 29, also excluding students, stood at 7.5 per cent in August, up from 7.2 per cent in July.
China’s overall urban jobless rate edged up to 5.3 per cent in August, from 5.2 per cent in July.


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Anxieties over AI’s growing threat to entry-level roles add to existing concerns about economic doldrums caused by weak domestic demand


Anxieties over AI’s growing threat to entry-level roles add to existing concerns about economic doldrums caused by weak domestic demand.


Record influx of university graduates pushes China’s youth unemployment rate to 18.9%

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Anxieties over AI’s growing threat to entry-level roles add to existing concerns about economic doldrums caused by weak domestic demand

Anxieties over AI’s growing threat to entry-level roles add to existing concerns about economic doldrums caused by weak domestic demand