China Should Prioritize Boosting Jobs: Guan Tao

China should focus on stabilizing the job market as a key to its cross-cycle macro policies and boosting domestic demand, wrote Guan Tao, the global chief economist of Bank of China International and a former forex official, on Yicai.com. Unemployment pressure remains high with the number of new urban jobs in the first seven months still 520,000 lower than the average for the same period in 2018 and 2019, Guan said. The youth unemployment rate will rise significantly with the arrival of the graduation season, while the tougher regulations on the education industry will lead to significant job reduction in the short term, Guan added. The two-year average rates of growth of disposable income and consumption of urban residents in the first seven months were 1.2 and 3.8 percentage points lower than that of the economic growth, according to Guan.