Roughly 5 million people in China lost their jobs in the first 2 months of 2020

Roughly 5 million people in China lost their jobs amid the outbreak of the new coronavirus in the first two months of this year, according to data published Monday. China’s official, but highly doubted, urban unemployment rate jumped in February to 6.2%, its highest on record, the National Bureau of Statistics said. That’s up from 5.3% in January and 5.2% in December.

China’s unemployment data have been highly doubted, even after the country changed its methodology from worker claims to a survey in 2018 in an effort to capture more of the job losses. The urban unemployment rate has hovered near 4% to 5% for the last 20 years. That makes a jump to 6.2% particularly notable. Mao Shengyong, a spokesperson for the National Bureau of Statistics, emphasized during a press conference Monday that the unemployment rate will likely fall in the second half of the year as businesses resume work.

More than half of the country extended a Lunar New Year holiday shutdown by at least a week in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19. The coronavirus has killed more than 3,200 people in China and has since hit more than 140 countries worldwide in a global pandemic. Fears of the impact on global growth have sent markets reeling.

By last week, the officially reported resumption of work rate in China was about 60% for small and medium-sized enterprises, and significantly higher for larger companies. However, analysts have pointed out that reopening a business typically does not mean it is operating at the same capacity as it normally would.

Roughly 5 million people in China lost their jobs in the first 2 months of 2020, CNBC, Mar 17