China youth jobless rate down at 15.7 per cent in December

Youth joblessness in Chinese cities fell for a fourth straight month in December, official data showed on Monday.

The urban jobless rate for 16 to 24-year-olds, excluding students, declined to 15.7 per cent from 16.1 per cent in November, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

The data point reached its highest at 18.8 per cent in August last year.

The unemployment rate for 25 to 29-year-olds slipped to 6.6 per cent from 6.7 per cent. But the jobless rate for 30 to 59-year-olds edged up to 3.9 per cent versus 3.8 per cent.

The nationwide jobless rate was at 5.1 per cent in December, according to data released by the statistics bureau last Friday.

For some months in 2023, China stopped reporting the data for youth joblessness after the unemployment rate for the youngest group, 16 to 24-year-olds, hit a record 21.3 per cent in June 2023.

The National Bureau of Statistics resumed publishing the closely watched benchmark in December 2023 after changing the methodology to exclude students.

The jobless rate also does not account for job seekers who have given up on job searches, and does not assess the unemployment situation in rural China.

China’s economy grew 5 per cent last year, matching the government’s target, but many still complained of worsening living standards as Beijing struggles to transfer its industrial and export gains to consumers.

The government has announced a wave of stimulus measures to buttress the economy ahead of more external headwinds expected from Donald Trump’s second term as United States president.

If the bulk of the extra stimulus Beijing has lined up for this year keeps flowing towards industrial upgrades and infrastructure, rather than households, it could exacerbate overcapacity in factories, weaken consumption, and increase deflationary pressures, analysts say.

Meanwhile China’s top electric vehicle maker BYD aims to complete its $1 billion plant in Indonesia at the end of 2025, the head of its local unit said on Monday, underscoring the firm’s ambition to dominate in the market where Japanese automakers are popular.

The long-term plan for the plant is for the export market, said Eagle Zhao, BYD’s president director in Indonesia.

“Every single progression of our local manufacturing is quite smooth and also on the track. We will keep our commitment, which is by end-2025, we will complete the construction works,” Zhao said in a joint interview with Reuters and CNBC Indonesia.

The plant, which is being built at an industrial complex in Subang, West Java, will have a production capacity of 150,000 EV units annually.

With the investment, BYD has been allowed to temporarily ship its cars into Indonesia without import duties, a policy aimed to stimulate demand for EVs while attracting investment by automakers. The government aims for 600,000 EVs to be domestically produced by 2030.

In 2024, its first year of sales in Indonesia, BYD sold 15,429 units, auto association data showed. According to January to November figures, BYD was the leader in terms of battery-based EV sales with about 36% of the market share.

Zhao said he expected the new plant to produce its first cars not long after the completion of construction.

BYD has so far introduced four models in Indonesia, namely the Seal sedan, the Atto 3 SUV, the Dolphin hatchback and the M6 seven-seater MPV, which was its most sold model out of the four last year.

Zhao added that the company planned to introduce more models this year, without specifying how many, in order to book a “rapid growth” in sales in 2025. BYD is to also launch its premium Denza brand in Indonesia this week. BYD, which overshot its global sales target to more than 4 million unit sold last year, has been stepping up its presence in Southeast Asia, challenging the car market dominated by Japanese and Korean firms.

Last year, BYD opened its first EV plant in the region, in Thailand, worth $490 million and which has a production capacity of 150,000 units per year, including plug-in hybrids.

Chinese officials and ordinary people are hopeful but on edge as Donald Trump returns to the White House, eager to avoid a repeat of the bruising trade war that drove a wedge between the economic superpowers during his first term.

Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, in meetings with Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other members of the US business community in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration, said he hoped US companies would “take root” in China and help to stabilise bilateral relations, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

When Trump was last president, he heaped tariffs on more than $300 billion of Chinese imports. In recent months, he has said he would add tariffs of at least 10 per cent on top of what is already imposed on Chinese goods, a move that would hurt China at a time when its economy is struggling to find a firm footing.