China, first in and first out of the pandemic is a great place to study not only the effects but also the after-effects on unemployment.
Panle Jia Barwick of Cornell University (et. al.) gained access to China Mobile’s records of 71-milliion individuals in Guangdong province for a two year period including location and tracking specifics for 1-million of them (all coded of course).
As the period covered January 2020 to September 2020 it allowed for a good before-and-after pandemic pattern-drill.
The key finding is that the official statistics for a rise in unemployment due to COVID-19 are way off what the actual numbers must have been. The government says unemployment may have risen nationwide from 5.3% to 6% from January to June. The researchers reckon in Guangdong it went up by at least 27% and may have gone up in places by as much as 62%.
Women and migrants appear to have been most affected (need to manage home schooling and nature of work the problems most likely), but the over-40s appear to have also suffered disproportionately.
Also noted (the study was published last December 26th, BTW) is how five months after the full opening unemployment had not returned to pre-pandemic levels.
In this case it’s probably because as much as China may be back to work the rest of the world is not and that matters for many tied to the export manufacturing complex so heavily represented in Guangdong.
If this unemployment persistence isn’t just a China-thing implications for those yet to make it to the other side of their pandemics are worrying.
You can access the full report via the following link Real Unemployment in China
Happy Sunday.