Employment strong in 2023

About 11 million new jobs created in urban areas, statistics bureau says

China's employment in urban areas grew last year, with the nation's economy and job market returning to normal after the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts said.

The latest figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show that the number of hired workers in urban areas reached 470.3 million by the end of last year, accounting for 63.5 percent of the nation's total hired workers. The number grew by 11.01 million from 2022, and 2.59 million from 2021.

Du Yang, director of the population and labor economy institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the number of hired workers in urban areas declined in 2022 due to COVID-19 — the first such decline since the launch of reform and opening-up in the late 1970s — with the number dropping by 8.42 million from 2021.