BEIJING – China continues to face difficulties in stabilising its employment situation in an uncertain external environment, but will promote entrepreneurship to create jobs, a top Chinese official said on March 9.
As a record-high 12.22 million college graduates are expected to flood the job market in 2025, stabilising and expanding employment remains “an arduous task”, said Ms Wang Xiaoping, China’s Minister of Human Resources and Social Security.
Adding to the pressure is the need to provide stable employment for rural migrant workers and keep the number of people who have been lifted out of poverty and are now employed above 300 million, she said.
“The employment pressure remains high, structural contradictions have become more prominent, and people face challenges in increasing their income through employment,” Ms Wang said.
“At the same time, the external environment is increasingly complex and severe. The foundation for China’s sustained economic recovery and growth is still unstable, and this may have some impact on employment.”
Ms Wang spoke at a press conference held on the sidelines of the Two Sessions, China’s annual parliamentary meetings in Beijing, where thousands of delegates had gathered to discuss national policies.
She was accompanied by three other heads of Chinese ministries and agencies, who took questions from a roomful of domestic and international reporters on China’s plans to improve its citizens’ livelihood in 2025.
So far, the meetings at the Two Sessions have been dominated by the economy and China’s technological breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI). Geopolitical issues such as the escalating trade war between the US and China have also loomed large as each side has imposed tit-for-tat tariffs on goods from the other country.
China has been struggling with weak domestic consumption and persistently high levels of youth unemployment, as a prolonged property crisis has weighed heavily on its lacklustre economy.
Youth unemployment in Chinese cities fell for a fourth straight month in December 2024, but remained high at 15.7 per cent, according to official data. The average urban unemployment rate stood at 5.1 per cent in 2024, down 0.1 percentage point from 2023.
At the press conference, Ms Wang said the Chinese government is focused on fostering an entrepreneur-friendly environment and expanding loan support, which in turn will drive employment.
This is on top of measures that include expanding vocational training to upskill workers in the manufacturing and service industries, where there is a lack of skilled workers, she said.
China aims to create more than 12 million new urban jobs in 2025, as laid out in a government work report presented by Chinese Premier Li Qiang on March 5.
Employment remains a politically sensitive issue in China due to its potential link to social unrest, so official targets are always met, China watchers have said.
OCBC Bank economist Tommy Xie said that as China’s private sector is the primary driver of employment, the Chinese government’s strategy to promote private entrepreneurship kills two birds with one stone.
“It drives technological advancement while addressing labour market challenges through the cultivation of start-ups and job creation,” said Mr Xie, who heads the bank’s Greater China research. The rapid expansion of emerging industries may provide long-term support for labour market stability and sustained economic growth, he told The Straits Times.
During a rare meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and the head honchos of China’s biggest technology firms, including DeepSeek’s Mr Liang Wenfeng and Alibaba’s Mr Jack Ma, on Feb 17, Mr Xi said private entrepreneurs should have an ambition to serve the country.
This comes at a time when China is seeking to boost economic growth with innovation as the China-US rivalry intensifies.
The private sector accounts for more than half of China’s economy, and provides the majority of urban employment and tax revenues.
Dr Chen Bo, a senior research fellow from the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, said the push to encourage entrepreneurship among young people stems from a structural change as AI is increasingly replacing jobs in traditional fields such as manufacturing.
Young people also have higher job expectations, he told ST, adding: “Right now, we have too many potential employees looking for jobs, but too few potential entrepreneurs creating jobs.”
In addition to using financial, fiscal and tax policies to encourage more entrepreneurs and promote job creation, the government also needs to ensure basic social security protection to prevent social instability, said Dr Chen, who was formerly an economics professor at Wuhan’s Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
At the same press conference, Housing Minister Ni Hong struck an optimistic tone on the property market, saying market confidence has improved in the first two months of 2025, without going into specifics.
He pledged to resolutely restore stability in the real estate market, promising strong financing support for eligible housing projects, and ensuring timely delivery of homes to buyers.
- Michelle Ng is China Correspondent at The Straits Times. She is interested in Chinese foreign policies, property trends, demographics, education and rural issues.
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