Small data, big questions: What industries will stop publishing youth unemployment rate?

Executive Summary:

The suspension of the publication of the rising youth unemployment rate has caused an uproar in public opinion, and the reasons for the suspension are also full of controversy. Suspension of the publication of youth unemployment is more dangerous than higher youth unemployment. The suspension of the release of youth unemployment will also affect the normal operation and development of a number of industries.

At the press conference on August 15, Fu Linghui, spokesman of the National Bureau of Statistics, just introduced that China's national economy continued to recover in July, the operation was generally stable, most of the graduates have implemented the employment direction, the employment status of college graduates is generally stable, and the implementation rate and number of implementation numbers last year have increased slightly compared with the same period last year.

The reasons he gave are: the main task of school students is to study, whether students looking for jobs before graduation should be included in the labor force survey statistics, all aspects of society have different views, and further research is needed; In labour force survey statistics, the definition of the age range of young people also needs further study.

First, the reasons for suspending the publication of youth unemployment are controversial

We must know that the statistical indicator of youth unemployment is not created by us, it comes from the International Labour Organization's unemployment statistics standard, and the statistical system of employment, unemployment rate, including youth unemployment in various countries around the world, all follow this standard.

Two months ago, on June 15, 2023, Fu Linghui also introduced the statistical method of China's unemployment rate, including the youth unemployment rate. He said that according to the International Labour Organization's statistical standards on employment and unemployment, the mainland's employment statistics mainly rely on the labor force survey system of the National Bureau of Statistics. He said with great certainty: "Since its establishment, the mainland labor force survey system has been continuously improved and improved, and the statistical statistical standard of the mainland urban survey unemployment rate is in line with international standards, which can objectively reflect the employment situation of mainland cities and towns." ”

In fact, we haven't been publishing youth unemployment for a long time, and we only started publishing it regularly in 2018. The reason for publishing this data is also because we are in the process of reform and opening up, many foreign-funded institutions and enterprises invest in China, and the feasibility study report will study many things related to their investment, including the youth unemployment rate that other countries have long released together with the unemployment rate. In view of this, just as our environmental protection department went from denying PM2.5 to publishing PM2.5, we also began to publish youth unemployment.

In 2022, there will be more than 96 million urban youth aged 16-24 in mainland China, of which more than 65 million are in school, accounting for two-thirds. There are 31 million non-school students, accounting for one-third. In June 2023, the INE announced that the youth unemployment rate was 21.3%. From the logical point of view of the data, the youth unemployment rate obviously does not include students who have not graduated.

This indicator reflects unemployment among non-university students and young people who have graduated from universities who are willing to seek employment and have not found a job within three months.

The National Bureau of Statistics explains quite clearly how employment and unemployment are told.

First of all, look at the employed population, which also includes two categories:

One is a person who works more than one hour or more per week, and can obtain labor remuneration or business income.

The second is the group of people who have temporarily stopped work or taken vacation, but are currently working but have not gone to work.

The second is the unemployed population, which is defined more strictly and must meet three conditions:

One is that there is no work.

Second, within three months, I went to look for a job, but I couldn't find it.

Third, if you are given a job, don't care what you do, you can be on the job immediately.

Objectively analyzed, the suspension of the publication of the youth unemployment rate really has nothing to do with statistical caliber, statistical technology, and statistical accuracy. Everyone knows exactly what the reason is, and there is no need to say it explicitly.

Second, it is more dangerous to suspend the publication of the youth unemployment rate than the higher youth unemployment rate

No one can deny that we live in an age of data. Previously, we called it the information age, but now it is renamed the era of big data. In fact, it doesn't matter what the name is, the important thing is that our life, learning, work, and entertainment are inseparable from data all the time.

In all corners of our lives, there are all kinds of data generation, collection, collation, transmission, processing, publication and utilization. Some data stays in our mobile phones, computers, household appliances, public cameras, some data is concentrated in the servers of various enterprises, platforms, institutions, some of the most public data, need sufficient authority, reliability, and finally concentrated in the country's administrative departments, by them unified processing and sorting out regularly released to the public. For example, the financial data released by the People's Bank of China, the import and export data released by the customs, and the national economic and social statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

In 2022, China's data production reached 8.1 zettabytes (1 zettabytes is equivalent to 1 trillion GB, 1 GB is equal to 1024 trillion), a year-on-year increase of 22.7%, accounting for 10.5% of the total global data volume.

According to the recently released "China Digital Economy Industry Development Report (2023)", the scale of the mainland's digital economy will exceed 50 trillion yuan in 2022, accounting for 41.5% of GDP. The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that the next step will continue to deepen the digital transformation of the industry and accelerate the in-depth application of digital technology in all links of the industrial chain. With industry applications as the traction and typical scenarios as the core, form a roadmap for digital transformation.

Data is not only an important basis for national governance, but also the most important factor of production in modern society. At a time when countries are constantly providing more, more detailed and more timely data information, we do the opposite, stop providing some important data information, no matter what the purpose, the result is inevitably to reduce the supply of production factors, restrict the flow and utilization of production factors.

More importantly, stopping the release of important statistics that countries are releasing will seriously affect the trust of enterprises and capital in government governance, worry about the future business environment, and question the stability and predictability of the investment environment, resulting in a serious crisis of trust.

The Gini coefficient published by the National Bureau of Statistics is frozen at 0.466 in 2021. The Gini coefficient is the most important statistical indicator to measure income inequality and social equity.

The "China Consumer Confidence Index" released by the China Economic Prosperity Monitoring Center of the National Bureau of Statistics has also been stopped in March 2022 and can no longer be seen. The consumer confidence index is the most important basis for researchers and companies to judge market trends.

According to the Marginal Finance Lab, the National Bureau of Statistics has suspended more than 60,000 economic data. I don't have time to check whether this is true, but as a senior professional statistician and economic researcher, I know that many other countries have publicly released data, which we cannot find on the corresponding government website.

This is absolutely harmful to the development of the data service industry, or for the feasibility study before the enterprise invests.

Third, the suspension of the release of youth unemployment will affect the normal operation and development of a number of industries

By suspending the release of youth unemployment data, the public may think that this is not a big deal, but that we will not discuss youth unemployment in the future. This is very wrong. The impact of this incident on us is not only to cause concern, doubt and mistrust, and the subsequent butterfly effect, but also to have a direct and obvious impact.

The first is to affect the public's right to know. There is no doubt that there is no need for discussion.

The second is to influence the university's running and enrollment decisions.

If the employment situation of young people is good and the unemployment rate is low, universities can naturally expand enrollment, and vice versa. If the employment situation of students in their own school is better than the national average, it indicates that the existing subject structure meets the market demand, otherwise, it is necessary to find the shortcomings of the discipline and adjust the subject structure. The core decisions of universities need to be based on comparisons with youth unemployment.

The third is to affect the convenience of research institutions.

The youth unemployment rate is a comprehensive indicator and a key indicator for observing economic and social development trends and studying economic and social issues. Once the publication is stopped, economic and social research institutions will have to look for alternative data or estimate youth unemployment data based on other data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, which increases research costs and wastes research time.

The fourth is to affect the business decisions of the following industries.

It involves but is not limited to: postgraduate entrance examination, public examination counseling industry, study abroad consulting industry, recruitment industry, wedding industry, consumption and service industry for young people, product design and manufacturing industry for young people, game industry, etc.

Young people are the main market for these industries, and the employment status and employment trends of young people are related to whether these industries should shrink, maintain the status quo, or expand and develop.

If the youth unemployment rate falls, the income of young people will increase, the purchasing power will increase, the market capacity of the postgraduate entrance examination, the public examination counseling industry, and the study abroad consulting industry will shrink, but the market capacity of the recruitment industry, the wedding industry, the consumption and service industry for young people, and the product design and manufacturing industry for young people will expand. Different employment status of young people, for young people's consumption and service industries, for young people's product design and manufacturing industry product design direction is also completely different. For example, if the unemployment rate is high, the demand for home economy and home products will increase, and if the unemployment rate is low, the demand for outdoor products and services of young people will increase.

In fact, all of our public data products have their own needs. Why does the international community need to survey and count youth unemployment? Because this is not only the basis for the government to formulate public policies, but also an important reference for many investors and enterprises to decide on production and investment plans.

Fifth, it affects the buying and selling decisions of securities investors.

Many of the listed companies operate in the industries we mentioned in point 4. The trend of youth unemployment determines our estimates and expectations for the performance of these companies, which is the basis for our decision to buy, sell or continue to hold. Without youth unemployment, the loss of this important reference will seriously affect the convenience and accuracy of securities investors' trading decisions.

People and society grow in development and mature in growth. Youth unemployment data may not be perfect, and it is not a big deal that young people may need to experience some difficulties in finding employment during the economic recovery. There are more voices questioning the accuracy of statistics, and the suspension of publication because of loud doubts, or suboptimal data, must have a more devastating impact than the former. Many foreign media commented on this matter and believed that the suspension of the publication of the rising youth unemployment rate will cause greater damage to the credibility of economic data and market confidence. Nomura economist Lu Ting said in a note that the suspension of youth employment data "could further erode global investors' confidence in China."

Recently, we have issued many documents and policies to encourage foreign capital to enter, encourage private investment, and encourage residents to participate in the securities market to obtain investment returns. Information transparency, public policy stability, comprehensiveness and accessibility of public data are the primary evaluation indicators for investment. I hope that all our decisions can be resonated in the same direction, rather than dissolving each other in different directions.

【Author:Xu Saburō】