With Covid Zero policy, one in five young people is unemployed in China

A man cuts his hair in the street amidst the Covid lockdown – in progress in Shanghai, China, 09 from May of 2022. A new concern in the country is monkeypox.

| Photo: EFE

China is experiencing a record high rate of young people unemployed, which highlights the economic crisis the country is going through. According to official data, 20% of young people are unemployed. This statistic is from July, two months after the biggest confinement in Shanghai, and the level of unemployment is expected to persist or increase, according to experts.

According to the president of the Cedimes Institute, Claude Albagli, in an interview with the newspaper Le Monde, “the heart of the Chinese economy was paused by Covid”. “If people can no longer go out, they have no income”, points out Albagli.20

According to the Japanese bank Nomura, the cities with the greatest confinement represent a fifth of the country’s GDP. With plants closed and workers unable to leave their homes, the country’s growth forecast is just 3%, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a slowdown compared to recent years – and a 5% drop compared to the year past. In recent weeks, the country has been gripped by a wave of demonstrations against health policy and Xi Jinping’s regime.8014372371001