China Unemployment Rate
The share of the labour force that wants a job and is actively looking, but can't find one.
4.6%
Matches the latest releaseNot refreshed recently, awaiting the next release
Explore the full China economy17 live indicators on one dashboard, from growth and prices to jobs, trade and public finances. Checked hourly against official sources.Unemployment Rate
1991 to 2025
Source: World Bank SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS · modeled ILO estimate, % of total labour force, annual.
China Unemployment Rate in context
Worked out from the published series shown above.
In China, the unemployment rate was unchanged in 2025, from 4.6% in 2024.
Over the past five years it has ranged from 4.5% in 2021 to 5.0% in 2020.
Its average since 1991 is 4.1%, and the latest reading is above that.
China is 20th of 33 countries in our Unemployment Rate by Country ranking.
How this series is defined
Everything you need to check the figure against the source.
- Source
- World Bank
- Series
- SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS
- Frequency
- Annual
- Unit
- %
- Seasonal adjustment
- Not applicable, annual data
- Latest observation
- 2025
- Revision status
- Latest published estimate, subject to revision
This is the International Labour Organization's modelled annual estimate; the National Bureau of Statistics' monthly surveyed urban rate is not shown.
Data refreshed 2026-10-06. Figures are the latest published observations and can be revised.
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