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My question is regarding employment as well. What are your thoughts on the employment data in the first three quarters of this year? In addition, the unemployment rates of people aged 16-24 are going down month by month, but the rate is still at a high level — why is that? Will this situation improve in the future? Thank you.
Yao Jingyuan:
Where is the difficulty for employment? At present, there is a coexistence of recruitment difficulty and employment difficulty. I performed research in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta and found that quite a few companies are now having difficulty recruiting new workers. On the other hand, the unemployment rate for young people is relatively high. As I mentioned earlier, China's surveyed urban unemployment rate is 5.2%, and the unemployment rate among those aged 16-24 is significantly higher than the overall level. One reason is that there are 9.09 million college graduates this year, over 300,000 more than last year's figure of 8.74 million. This is not a small number. There is another reason: In a normal year, a considerable number of fresh graduates will study abroad, but this year they are mostly unable to study abroad. These students are now staying in the country, and a considerable number of them will look to gain employment. Therefore, the employment pressure for young people this year is very high. Of course, there are also structural problems in employment. More young people hope to find jobs in the modern services industry and are unwilling to work on production lines, which makes it difficult for manufacturing companies to recruit people. Therefore, combining the above reasons, a situation has occurred where the youth unemployment rate is higher than the average unemployment across society.
The CPC Central Committee and the State Council have clearly set the employment of college students as a key task. The Ministry of Education and other relevant departments have adopted many measures in relevant aspects. I think some policies will also be introduced in the future. Next, in the process of achieving the second centenary goal, China will take innovation as its primary driving force, and talented personnel are the primary resources. Talented young people are the main body of innovation, so it is necessary to provide more desirable positions for college graduates through structural adjustment and optimization, which can help solve the employment problem for them.
