China’s youth unemployment rate hit a record in August since publication resumed under a revised calculation last year, adding to a recent string of gloomy economic data.

The NBS announced that China’s overall unemployment rate in August stood at 5.3 per cent — up slightly from 5.2 per cent in July.

The government’s jobless rate for people aged between 16 and 24 reached 18.9 per cent in August — the highest level since the change. This increase marks the latest development in a recent streak of disappointing figures showing strain on the world’s second-largest economy.

The National Bureau of Statistics had paused its monthly publication of youth unemployment figures in June 2023 after the rate soared to more than 21 per cent.

When figures resumed for December of that year, the rate dropped by more than six percentage points, though derived from a new methodology that excluded students. The number has fluctuated over the past year as Beijing sought to breathe new life into a struggling economy that has amplified anxieties in the labor market.

Official NBS data showed that factory output and retail sales rose last month at their slowest pace in around a year, authorities said earlier this week.

NBS chief economist Fu Linghui acknowledged “weak” demand in the domestic economy, noting that “some enterprises are facing operational difficulties.” The intensified headwinds come as Beijing confronts a multi-sided battle to ensure stable growth.

A years-long debt crisis in the property sector, persistent sluggishness in domestic spending, and heightened trade tensions with Washington are among the thorny issues facing Chinese leaders.