Unemployment rate at 5.3% in August

China's surveyed unemployment rate has remained stable over the past eight months with only slight fluctuation, it was revealed on Monday.

The latest figures unveiled by the National Bureau of Statistics show that in the first eight months of this year, the average surveyed unemployment rate in urban areas was 5.2 percent. In August, the number was 5.3 percent, up 0.1 percentage point from the previous month.

The surveyed unemployment rate in the nation's 31 major cities such as Shanghai and Beijing was 5.3 percent in August, also up 0.1 percentage point from that in July. The number was down 0.1 percentage point year-on-year.

"The unemployment rate has kept stable in August as it roughly pulled even with that of the same month in 2024. The slight increase in the unemployment rate in the month was because of the influx of fresh college graduates to the job market," said Fu Linghui, a spokesman for the NBS, at a news conference in Beijing.

This year, China's college graduates totaled 12.22 million. The number last year was 11.79 million.

Fu said keeping domestic employment stable is not an easy job because of the changing global landscape, the huge pressure from a large number of job seekers, and the structural imbalance of the job market.

"The stable running of the domestic economy, growth of new quality productive forces and supportive government policies will keep supporting employment, while we still need to take note of problems like the imbalance of labor force supply and demand in certain industries," Fu said.

The spokesman added that the nation will continue in its efforts to support job seekers with training, and make sure those looking for employment are able to obtain quality jobs.