(Yicai) Jan. 17 -- Following a six-month reporting hiatus, China today published urban youth unemployment figures for December that showed a big improvement after the methodology was tweaked to exclude students.

The unemployment rate last month was 14.9 percent for those aged 16 to 24, the National Bureau of Statistics announced today, down from June’s 21.3 percent, which included students.

The NBS suspended the release of jobless data for this age group last August. The reason given was that with widespread access to higher education, most youngsters in this group are registered college and university students focused on education rather than finding a job, so the original methodology cannot accurately reflect the true employment status of this age group.

More than 60 percent of China’s urban population in this age group, or nearly 62 million people, were registered as students last year, so the changed method of calculation better reflects the actual situation, the bureau said.

The NBS also announced today that starting from this month it will publish specific data for those aged 25 to 29, excluding students. This age group is in transition after just finishing higher education and having not yet settled into steady work, so the new data will better reflect the evolving job status of China’s new workforce, it said.

In December, the jobless rate for the 25-to-29 age group was 6.1 percent, while the rate for those aged 30 to 59 was 3.9 percent, the bureau revealed.

China's urban unemployment rate was 5.2 percent last year, down 0.4 percentage point from 2022. In December, the population-wide rate was 5.1 percent and among those aged between 30 and 59, the rate stood at 3.9 percent, the figures showed.

Editor: Emmi Laine