Women work at a wickerwork factory in Ganyu district, Lianyungang, East China's Jiangsu Province on Sunday. The district has in recent years expanded employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for local left-behind women and helped them get handcraft training, which enables them to find jobs or start their own businesses. Photo: cnsphoto

The Chinese economy added a total of 9.38 million urban jobs in the first eight months of 2021, accounting 85.3 percent of an official target for new jobs for the full year, official data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Wednesday.

Also pointing to the largely stable jobs market, China's urban unemployment rate in August remained unchanged at 5.1 percent, according to the NBS. 

The employment situation remains stable, and the surveyed urban unemployment rate of young people has declined, Fu Linghui, spokesperson for the NBS, said at a press briefing on Wednesday.

However, Fu also pointed out that pressure and structural contradictions still exist in the jobs market and it is crucial to effectively implement policies that prioritize jobs to ensure stable and positive employment situation. 

Among the challenges are relatively slower recovery pace in services sectors and record number of new university graduates that are entering the jobs market this summer, analysts noted. 

"Over 9 million students graduated from universities this year, a priority for China's policymakers, adding pressure in the second half of 2021," Dong Dengxin, director of the Finance and Securities Institute of Wuhan University, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

NBS data also showed that the surveyed unemployment rate for people aged 16-24 was 15.3 percent, down 0.9 percentage point from July, while the surveyed unemployment rate for people aged 25-59 was 4.3 percent. 

However, going forward, Fu stressed, there are still many favorable conditions for employment to remain stable over the medium term, with the economy improving over an extended period of time.

Moreover, the domestic services industry is gradually recovering from the COVID-19 epidemic with the market vitality also increasing, which will help create more job opportunities and more options in flexible employment. 

Dong said that the country's long-term social and economic development plan also pays great attention to jobs, which will ensure a stable employment situation for the long term.

The State Council, China's cabinet, recently issued an employment plan during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, seeking to expand urban employment and creating at least 55 million new urban jobs prior to the end of 2025 while aiming to lower the unemployment rate below 5.5 percent.