The Causes of Unemployment in China Compared to Other East Asian Countries

By Yining Zhou

According to the official report published by the Chinese government, the number of graduates in 2022 will reach 10 million. Due to COVID-19 and the shrinkage in the workforce in middle and small companies, the unemployment rate has shown an increasing trend since 2020. This paper aims to examine the different causes of fluctuations in the unemployment rate in the past five years with a specific focus on the pre-pandemic and post-pandemic changes, including comparisons to other east Asian countries such as Japan and Korea.  

Keywords: graduates, unemployment rate, workforce, pandemic