Donald Trump's trade war hurting China more than US, says IMF

[Hamartia Antidote]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jul/23/donald-trump-trade-war-china-us-imf

Donald Trump’s claim that his protectionist measures are hurting China more than the US has received support from the International Monetary Fund in new forecasts showing how a fresh slowdown in the global economy has been concentrated in emerging economies.

The Washington-based IMF said the outlook was gloomier than it envisaged three months ago due to the tit-for-tat tariff war between the world’s two biggest economies, Brexit uncertainty and the impact of sanctions against Iran on oil prices.

In an update to its half-yearly World Economic Outlook, the IMF said it expected global growth to be 0.1 percentage points lower in both 2019 and 2020 than it envisaged in April, at 3.2% and 3.5% respectively.

China from 6.3% to 6.2%.

“In China, the negative effects of escalating tariffs and weakening external demand have added pressure to an economy already in the midst of a structural slowdown and needed regulatory strengthening to rein in high dependence on debt.”

Emerging and developing economies as a whole are now expected to grow by 4.1% this year – a cut of 0.3 points from April – with a slower pace of expansion pencilled in for Russia, India, Brazil and Mexico.

The forecasts came amid growing optimism that the US and China could soon settle their differences. Shares rose in Asia and Europe after it was reported that the US trade representative Robert Lighthizer and the treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin will meet China’s vice-premier, Liu He, next week.

The IMF said growth had been better than expected in the US and Japan in the first half of 2019, while one-off factors that had hurt growth in the eurozone in 2018 (notably, adjustments to new auto emissions standards) had appeared to fade as anticipated.

But despite upgrading its US growth forecast, the IMF fired a warning to the White House about the risks of a full-blown trade war.

“Multilateral and national policy actions are vital to place global growth on a stronger footing,” the IMF said. “The pressing needs include reducing trade and technology tensions and expeditiously resolving uncertainty around trade agreements (including between the UK and the EU and the free trade area encompassing Canada, Mexico and the US). Specifically, countries should not use tariffs to target bilateral trade balances or as a substitute for dialogue to pressure others for reforms.”

The IMF said risks to its forecast were mainly to the downside. They included further trade and technology tensions that hit sentiment and reduced investment; a serious bout of jitters in financial markets that exposed the vulnerabilities of a decade of low interest rates; and growing deflationary pressures that would make servicing debts more expensive.

The IMF edged up its growth forecast for the UK this year from 1.2% to 1.3% and left it unchanged at 1.4% in 2020.

“The forecast assumes an orderly Brexit followed by a gradual transition to the new regime”, the IMF said in its WEO update. “However, as of mid-July, the ultimate form of Brexit remained highly uncertain.”

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/26/business/china-trade-war-us-rcep.html
China Needs New Places to Sell Its Mountain of Stuff

BEIJING — China has too many factories making too many goods. Thanks to its punishing trade war with the United States, its biggest overseas customer isn’t buying like before.

So China is seeking new customers. They could prove to be a hard sell.

China this week formally restarted its efforts to create a free-trade zone across the Asia-Pacific region, with an unlikely goal of striking a deal by November. If successful, the pact could eventually open markets from Australia to India.

Beijing is also trying to keep alive long-shot, three-way talks that would lower trade barriers among China, Japan and South Korea. More broadly, it is unilaterally reducing its own tariffs on a broad range of goods from all over the world, even as it puts higher retaliatory tariffs on American-made goods.

At stake is the health of the Chinese economy. Last week China reported that its growth slowed to its most sluggish pace in nearly three decades, in part because the trade war with the Trump administration has begun to hit its crucial export sector. Global companies are now looking to shift work to other countries to avoid what could be a protracted trade war.

China’s overall exports to the United States slumped 8.5 percent in the first half of this year. China’s exports to the rest of the world have risen only 2.1 percent. As Beijing’s trade war with Washington drags into its second year, the question now is who might buy China’s extra factory goods if the United States does not.


Already, the country is plagued with excess capacity for making cars, steel and other staples of global trade. More factory slowdowns and shutdown could lead to job losses and further drag down economic growth.

Faced with further potential economic pain, Beijing is looking to open up other markets. The centerpiece of its efforts is a push this summer to negotiate an Asian free trade pact called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or R.C.E.P. The partnership would encompass the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

Midlevel and senior trade officials from across the region began meeting this week in Zhengzhou, China. Their ministers are then scheduled to join them in Beijing on Aug. 2 and 3. The goal is to outline a deal that Asian leaders might then work out at a summit meeting in Bangkok in November.

“We are continuing talking on this, and we hope we can accelerate the speed so that it can be concluded within this year,” said Wu Jianghao, the director general of the department of Asian affairs at the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

China’s leaders have talked since 2012 about the possibility of such a regional partnership, in response to President Barack Obama’s plans for a multination trade deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership that would have excluded China. Working out a deal would require solving some thorny issues.

“I’m not optimistic about that deal to be materialized in November,” said Takeshi Niinami, chief executive of Suntory, the Japanese beverage company, and a member of a council that advises Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, on economic issues. “Maybe we need more time,” he said.

One obstacle had been China’s own high tariffs. Beijing long feared that if it cut tariffs, manufacturers would flee China’s surging wages and find lower-cost refuges in countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh.

Starting in May of last year, China began reducing its tariffs. Trade tensions with the United States were rising. Chinese leaders had also become increasingly willing to lower protective walls around the country’s labor-intensive, low-tech industries so as to focus on more sophisticated manufacturing. Though average tariffs remain higher than those of the United States and the European Union, the categories for which China has reduced tariffs include many low-tech manufactured goods, like handbags and low-cost garments, which many of China’s neighbors would like to export.

“We will continue to lower overall tariffs voluntarily, remove non-tariff barriers, actively increase the import of goods and services, and enhance import facilitation,” Premier Li Keqiang said in a speech on July 2 in Dalian, China, at the “summer Davos” session of the World Economic Forum.

Winning support could be a tall order. India, for example, with its size and fast growth could be a potentially vast buyer of Chinese goods. But India protects its markets behind the highest average tariffs among the world’s biggest economies, and it fears floods of low-priced imports from China.

Still, Indian pharmaceutical makers want to ship more generic drugs to China. Service industries, like computer programming, want to make it easier for Indian programmers to get temporary work visas there.

“There are sectors that feel very vulnerable, and there are sectors that stand to gain, like services,” said Gaurav Dalmia, the chairman of Dalmia Group Holdings, an Indian industrial and financial conglomerate. Yet China has been wary of opening its doors to Indian pharmaceuticals and Indian workers. One possibility is that the negotiations could reach a deal that does not initially include India, said Mari Pangestu, a former trade minister of Indonesia. But that would limit the benefits for the other countries in the talks.

Even if a deal is struck, it is not clear how much China might benefit. A number of potential members, like Japan and South Korea, are highly competitive manufacturers themselves and may not import a lot more.

China has also been in long-running talks with Japan and South Korea on a trilateral trade partnership. But the prospects for any new trade deal among China, Japan and South Korea have been put in serious question by a simmering trade dispute between Japan and South Korea.

Even if China strikes new trade pacts, it will still face pressure to find markets for the vast amounts of manufactured goods it makes, said Brad Setser, a former Treasury official in the Obama administration who is now at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

“There’s absolutely no other country in the world that is willing right now to replace the United States in running a close to $400 billion annual trade deficit in manufactured goods with China,” he said.

 

[Yaseen1]

trade war will hurt china to some extent but it is also not good for u.s in long run as their stock market is continuously experiencing decline and factories which move out of china are not coming back to u.s but are going to other third world countries which will increase number of competitors to u.s companies in future when these third world will start manufacturing similar local products with less price than u.s companies which will ultimately reduce profits of u.s companies.At present u.s is only competing with china interms of technology products but in future they have to compete with vietnam,india or other countries also where factories are shifting Hamartia Antidote

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

trade war will hurt china to some extent but it is also not good for u.s in long run as their stock market is continuously experiencing decline

Stock market declining?? WTF? What planet are you on????
The stock market just hit some all-time record highs!

https://markets.businessinsider.com...ecords-strong-tech-earnings-2019-7-1028389496
US stocks climbed to new highs on Friday after better-than-expected earnings from Alphabet and Twitter. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite indexes both reached all-time records.

You sure you aren't thinking of the Shanghai market?

factories which move out of china are not coming back to u.s but are going to other third world countries which will increase number of competitors to u.s companies in future when these third world will start manufacturing similar local products with less price than u.s companies which will ultimately reduce profits of u.s companies.At present u.s is only competing with china interms of technology products but in future they have to compete with vietnam,india or other countries also where factories are shifting Hamartia Antidote

Keep in mind the vast majority of goods which are made in China and sold in the US are US brands not Chinese. So to consumers if a US company like Nike makes something in another country it does not matter. This is different than if a Chinese company says they simply wont sell in the US anymore. That would get noticed. However companies like these don't have much of a marketshare so it really wouldn't be noticed. Huawei? Negligible marketshare. Haier? Negligible marketshare.

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-...mic-growth-unable-boost-employment-job-market
China’s economic growth unable to boost employment as job market drops to six-year low, says think tank

Despite better-than-expected economic growth in the first quarter, China’s job market performed at its worst level in six years at the start of 2019, according to an industry report published on Friday.

The number of jobs seekers normally rises during January to March when many workers look to change jobs and college graduates start looking for career opportunities after their graduation.

However, in the first quarter, the number of potential applicants rose to the highest level since 2011 while demand for staff declined, according to the China Institute for Employment Research (CIER) at the Renmin University of China in Beijing.

This meant that the ratio of open positions to job applicants fell in the first quarter to 1.68, its lowest level since 2014, the CIER said, using research based on data from job recruitment site Zhaopin.

“The 2019 first quarter data showed increasing pressure from weak demand in the economy on employment. It has been on a straight fall for six quarters consecutively, showing increasing pressure from weak demand in the economy on employment,” CIER said.

“To keep the job market stable, we suggest the government introduce more stimulus measures to boost demand while continuing to cut taxes and [social security] fees.”

The number of workers hunting for jobs grew 31 per cent in the first quarter from the last quarter of 2018, while demand for staff fell 7.6 per cent. Compared to the first quarter of 2018, the number of open positions dropped 11 per cent in the first quarter, the report said.

China’s official unemployment data was mixed in the first quarter, with the survey-based urban unemployment rate at 5.2 per cent across the country in March, down from 5.3 per cent in February. But in 31 provincial capitals, the unemployment rate rose to 5.1 per cent in March, the highest since the end of 2016.

Beijing has made employment one of its top policy priorities this year amid the slowing economy, and according to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, 3.24 million new jobs were created in the first quarter, close to a third of its target of 11 million for the whole year.

While overall there were more jobs in the economy than workers, there was a wide difference between regions across China.

Eastern and southern China fared relatively better than northern cities including Beijing, where five jobseekers were competing for every open position, according to CIER. In the northeastern provinces known as China’s rust belt, two people were competing for every job, on average.

But even in the rich eastern and southern provinces, many cities could barely meet demand from job applicants.

In the Pearl River Delta region in southern Guangdong province, China’s manufacturing hub, the employment market had fewer jobs than workers in the first quarter, with demand for staff increasing only 4.17 per cent year-on-year in contrast to the increase of 48.4 per cent in available applicants, CIER said.

The education sector created the most jobs in the first quarter, the CIER added, with open positions up 6.2 per cent from the same quarter last year. In particular, education institutions in smaller, second-tier cities showed the highest hiring growth.

But the internet and e-commerce industries continued to shows signs of stress, with open positions down 22 per cent year-on-year. Earlier this year, internet companies, including ride sharing giant Didi Chuxing, were preparing to lay of thousands of employees to cut costs.

And while China’s stock market may have strengthened in the first quarter, that has not brought back jobs in the financial industry, which continued to suffer the biggest drop in hiring demand – down 39.7 per cent – among all industries during the first quarter.

The reduction in finance jobs was the most severe in the first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.

 

[Three_Kingdoms]

US government to pay farmers hurt by China trade war $16bn

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...t-to-pay-farmers-hurt-by-china-trade-war-16bn

As trade talks are set to resume after a two-month halt, an aid package will see producers paid up to $150 per acre

Reuters

Fri 26 Jul 2019 01.45 BST

Soy beans are America’s top food export and farmers have been hit hard by tariffs from China. Photograph: Andres Stapff/Reuters/Corbis

The US government will pay American farmers hurt by the trade war with China between $15 and $150 per acre in an aid package totaling $16bn with farmers in the South poised to see higher rates than in the midwest.

As US and Chinese negotiators prepare to meet face-to-face for the first time since talks on the dispute collapsed in May, the agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue, said the package showed that Donald Trump knew farmers were “fighting the fight”.

The assistance, starting in mid-to-late August, follows the president’s $12bn package last year that was aimed at making up for lower farm good prices and lost sales.

US farmers, one of Trump’s key constituencies, have been among the hardest hit in the year-long trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Shipments of soybeans, the most valuable US farm export, to top buyer China sank to a 16-year low in 2018.

Democrats criticised the move, saying farmers needed fair trade instead of a bailout.

Perdue argued that farmers were disproportionately hurt by the trade dispute and that the new round of aid was justified.

“President Trump has a great affection for America’s farmers and ranchers and it’s pretty evident in this program,” Perdue said. “He knows that they are fighting the fight and they are on the front line.”

In the new aid package, the US department of agriculture said it would pay farmers according to geographic location rather than by crop – a change from last year.

“There were a number of factors from last year’s programs that we wanted to correct,” USDA chief economist Rob Johansson said.

Farmers in the cotton-growing Mississippi Delta states stand to be the greatest beneficiaries of the program, according to a Reuters analysis of the payment rates posted online.

The average county payment rate is about $95 per acre in Alabama, $87 in Mississippi and $70 in Louisiana. Payment rates were lower in the midwest, with a $69-per-acre county average in Illinois, the country’s top soybean producer, and a $66 average in Iowa, the top corn- and hog-producing state.

The program covers 29 commodity crops, including soybeans, corn, wheat, sorghum and upland cotton. It also covers dairy and hog farmers, as well as farms that grow 10 specialty crops – including almonds, pistachios, walnuts, cranberries and fresh sweet cherries.

Johansson said the minimum and maximum payment rates were based on an analysis of 10 years of trade data and the amount countries with retaliatory tariffs, including China and India, could have imported.

“These payments are enough to make a difference, kind of get us to the harvest,” said Tim Bardole, an Iowa corn and soybean farmer.



To be eligible for payments, crops must be planted by 1 August 2019, the USDA said. The number of farm acres that could not be planted was at a historic level this year because of midwest flooding, officials said, further straining the farm economy.

While farm and industry groups welcomed the support, they continued to push for the Trump administration to end trade fights and strike deals with top export markets.

Such federal financial support, the Illinois Farm Bureau said in a statement, “is not a long-term solution.” The National Cotton Council said there had been significant cancellations and deferrals of cotton sales to China over the past year.

Trade talks between China and the United States broke down in May after getting close to a potential agreement and were only revived in a meeting between Trump and Chinese president, Xi Jinping, last month.







The US-China trade war hurts American families
By Mary E. Lovely for CNN Business Perspectives

Updated 1944 GMT (0344 HKT) May 20, 2019
/edition.cnn.com/2019/05/20/perspectives/us-china-trade-war-economic-costs/index.html


Mary E. Lovely is a professor of economics at Syracuse University and non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The opinions expressed in this commentary are her own.

Trump is escalating his trade war against China, and American families are paying the price.

When President Donald Trump first initiated the trade war with China one year ago, he justified the action as necessary to open China's markets and to secure America's rights to its own intellectual property. Selling these actions as good for America, Trump promised that "trade wars are good and easy to win" and that China, not the United States, would bear the tariff burden.
Earlier this month, the president significantly increased the tariffs, and Americans are now staring down the barrel of a 25% tax on everything imported from China. The Chinese are ready to return the favor by increasing taxes on $60 billion of US exports. Is it really possible that taxes this high on one-fifth of US imports, coupled with crippling barriers to US exports, are good for Americans? Common sense and mounting empirical evidence tell us no; these tariffs burden American households and producers and offer no relief from the problems they were supposed to solve.
By now, it is likely no surprise to American families that tariffs raise the cost of living. Walmart said last week that new import duties would lead to higher priceson a wide variety of consumer goods newly targeted by the latest promised round of tariffs. Retail trade groups warn that higher prices will be the norm, as China provided about 41% of all apparel, 72% of all footwear and 84% of all travel goods imported into the United States in 2017. Given the likely timeline for this latest escalation, these price hikes should hit American parents just in time for back-to-school shopping.
MORE MARKETS & ECONOMY PERSPECTIVES
It's a tough time for trade. But emerging economies are moving ahead

What to expect from 2019's 'post-peak' economy

Why the US would never win a trade war with China

Trump's tariffs also burden US producers by raising the cost of inputs and supplies from China. In fact, intermediate goods and capital equipment — such as electric motors, bicycle parts and plastics — destined for American factories and workshops comprise the largest share of US imports from China. Higher costs for these supplies, which are directly involved in production processes, impair American competitiveness, reducing sales of US-made products both at home and abroad. They erode profits for American business owners and make it harder for American workers to see real pay increases. About 37% of US imports from China are computers and electronic devices, and all trade in this category soon may be taxed at 25%. As a result, American offices, factories, schools and homes will find it more difficult to make the investments necessary to keep pace with changing information technology.
The pain of higher costs for American manufacturers has so far paled beside the severe distress facing American farmers and ranchers, whose sales to China have plummeted since Trump's trade war began. With tariffs looking more permanent with each passing day, planting for another season or raising another herd grows ever more challenging.


President Trump notes that firms that produce in the United States using only American suppliers can avoid tariffs. But American farmers, who largely fit this mold, are among those most hurt by tariffs, as they remain locked out of one of the largest and fastest-growing markets in the world. For other industries, local suppliers are simply non-existent. Wage differences between the United States and low-income countries are more than adequate to render American production of labor-intensive components infeasible. For example, the production of low-tech electronics, like power cords, has been moving away from China for years, but to Southeast Asia, not back to the States.
Lastly, the tariff war contributes to China's economic slowdown, which hurts the hundreds of American companies that produce and sell within China, such as General Motors and Caterpillar, endangering the jobs back home that are linked to the success of these overseas activities. Many American jobs now depend on healthy overseas sales by American multinationals. The trade war risks pushing Chinese consumers away from US products, taking away American jobs in the process.
It is undoubtedly true that China also suffers because of the trade war. Factories close as new orders shift to producers in other parts of Asia or Mexico. Chinese companies find it more costly and difficult to access American technology, as they are clipped from Western supply chains, banned from importing high-tech products or unable to access advanced machinery. Although China will have greater difficulty climbing out of the "middle-income trap" because of the US trade war, it will continue to have access to European and Japanese products and technology.


As tariffs become broader, higher and more permanent without any relief from the changes in Chinese behavior they were supposed to elicit, it becomes increasingly likely that nothing will be gained by the American families who are paying the price of Trump's trade war.

 

[LeGenD]

Reality is expected to be different from state-sponsored propaganda and the picture 'speculators' want to paint for general audience.

Trade War would damage China more than US in the long-term because China is strong in the SUPPLY side whereas US is strong in the DEMAND side. SUPPLIER cannot do well if DEMAND is low (buyers not happy) - common sense.

Chinese manufacturing base is taking a hit as companies are in search for alternate destinations to manufacture goods: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/18/mor...production-out-of-china-due-to-trade-war.html

Chinese sources are also admitting the obvious: https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-...rade-war-manufacturers-are-fleeing-china-just

Chinese leadership need to think this through, plan a better deal to sway Donald Trump. Not looking good otherwise.

 

[Yaseen1]

this is a price of freedom and independence and I think china should not bend down towards u.s slavery unlike what japan and skorea did.

Reality is expected to be different from state-sponsored propaganda and the picture 'speculators' want to paint for general audience.

Trade War would damage China more than US in the long-term because China is strong in the SUPPLY side whereas US is strong in the DEMAND side. SUPPLIER cannot do well if DEMAND is low (buyers not happy) - common sense.

Chinese manufacturing base is taking a hit as companies are in search for alternate destinations to manufacture goods: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/18/mor...production-out-of-china-due-to-trade-war.html

Chinese sources are also admitting the obvious: https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-...rade-war-manufacturers-are-fleeing-china-just

Chinese leadership need to think this through, plan a better deal to sway Donald Trump. Not looking good otherwise.

Trump adds $4.1 trillion to national debt. Here's where the money went

This will mark the third time that a major piece of deficit-financed legislation will get Trump’s stamp of approval. Legislation Trump has so far signed since 2017 has added $2.4 trillion to the national debt through 2029, according to CRFB, a nonpartisan public policy group.

President Trump is adding $4 trillion to the national debt
“If you were to extend all the expiring provisions from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it would be about a trillion more on top of that, so it’s hugely expensive,” says CRFB’s senior vice president Marc Goldwein. “Some of this is done on a partisan basis, some of this is done on a bipartisan basis. But it’s all part of a culture of no longer worrying about how we’re going to pay for things and just assuming that future generations are going to cover the bill.”

The budget deal that was passed last year added $445 billion to the national debt. And when he signs the 2019 Bipartisan Budget Act after it goes to the Senate next week, Trump will make spending increases in the legislation permanent, growing the national debt by $1.7 trillion through 2029.


“We are the most powerful economy in the world and we’re the world’s reserve currency and we borrow at our own currency. And for those three reasons we’re not going to default on our debt, but that doesn’t mean that we can borrow without consequences,” says Goldwein.

The ballooning national debt will cause GDP growth to slow down further, he says. “The more we borrow, the more we have to count on capital from abroad, or else no capital at all to fund our investments and the slower growth is going to be over time. We’re already headed towards 2% growth on the current basis, and the higher our debt is, the lower that will be.”


https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trum...ebt-heres-where-the-money-went-162238723.html

Stock market declining?? WTF? What planet are you on????

The stock market just hit some all-time record highs!

https://markets.businessinsider.com...ecords-strong-tech-earnings-2019-7-1028389496
US stocks climbed to new highs on Friday after better-than-expected earnings from Alphabet and Twitter. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite indexes both reached all-time records.

View attachment 571026
View attachment 571032


You sure you aren't thinking of the Shanghai market?
View attachment 571033



Keep in mind the vast majority of goods which are made in China and sold in the US are US brands not Chinese. So to consumers if a US company like Nike makes something in another country it does not matter. This is different than if a Chinese company says they simply wont sell in the US anymore. That would get noticed. However companies like these don't have much of a marketshare so it really wouldn't be noticed. Huawei? Negligible marketshare. Haier? Negligible marketshare.

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-...mic-growth-unable-boost-employment-job-market
China’s economic growth unable to boost employment as job market drops to six-year low, says think tank

Despite better-than-expected economic growth in the first quarter, China’s job market performed at its worst level in six years at the start of 2019, according to an industry report published on Friday.

The number of jobs seekers normally rises during January to March when many workers look to change jobs and college graduates start looking for career opportunities after their graduation.

However, in the first quarter, the number of potential applicants rose to the highest level since 2011 while demand for staff declined, according to the China Institute for Employment Research (CIER) at the Renmin University of China in Beijing.

This meant that the ratio of open positions to job applicants fell in the first quarter to 1.68, its lowest level since 2014, the CIER said, using research based on data from job recruitment site Zhaopin.

“The 2019 first quarter data showed increasing pressure from weak demand in the economy on employment. It has been on a straight fall for six quarters consecutively, showing increasing pressure from weak demand in the economy on employment,” CIER said.

“To keep the job market stable, we suggest the government introduce more stimulus measures to boost demand while continuing to cut taxes and [social security] fees.”

The number of workers hunting for jobs grew 31 per cent in the first quarter from the last quarter of 2018, while demand for staff fell 7.6 per cent. Compared to the first quarter of 2018, the number of open positions dropped 11 per cent in the first quarter, the report said.

China’s official unemployment data was mixed in the first quarter, with the survey-based urban unemployment rate at 5.2 per cent across the country in March, down from 5.3 per cent in February. But in 31 provincial capitals, the unemployment rate rose to 5.1 per cent in March, the highest since the end of 2016.

Beijing has made employment one of its top policy priorities this year amid the slowing economy, and according to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, 3.24 million new jobs were created in the first quarter, close to a third of its target of 11 million for the whole year.

While overall there were more jobs in the economy than workers, there was a wide difference between regions across China.

Eastern and southern China fared relatively better than northern cities including Beijing, where five jobseekers were competing for every open position, according to CIER. In the northeastern provinces known as China’s rust belt, two people were competing for every job, on average.

But even in the rich eastern and southern provinces, many cities could barely meet demand from job applicants.

In the Pearl River Delta region in southern Guangdong province, China’s manufacturing hub, the employment market had fewer jobs than workers in the first quarter, with demand for staff increasing only 4.17 per cent year-on-year in contrast to the increase of 48.4 per cent in available applicants, CIER said.

The education sector created the most jobs in the first quarter, the CIER added, with open positions up 6.2 per cent from the same quarter last year. In particular, education institutions in smaller, second-tier cities showed the highest hiring growth.

But the internet and e-commerce industries continued to shows signs of stress, with open positions down 22 per cent year-on-year. Earlier this year, internet companies, including ride sharing giant Didi Chuxing, were preparing to lay of thousands of employees to cut costs.

And while China’s stock market may have strengthened in the first quarter, that has not brought back jobs in the financial industry, which continued to suffer the biggest drop in hiring demand – down 39.7 per cent – among all industries during the first quarter.

The reduction in finance jobs was the most severe in the first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.

Although stock market value increased but it is not as smooth as in the past years as evident from graphs and it seems each increase in stock market valuation is followed by decline unlike past year when decline are not much recurring as happening after tradewar

 

[Beidou2020]

American empire is in terminal decline. I’ve posted the reasons in this thread

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/pomp...-or-face-more-sanctions.628540/#post-11646188