China’s national labor market maintained broad stability through the first three months of 2026, official data released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security shows. The country created 2.99 million new urban employment opportunities over the quarter, with the average surveyed urban unemployment rate landing at 5.2 percent, according to ministry spokesperson Cui Pengcheng.
Speaking at a Tuesday press briefing, Cui outlined that policymakers prioritized targeted employment support for high-need groups, particularly recent college graduates and younger job seekers. The first quarter marks a critical window for new graduates entering the workforce, so officials moved quickly to roll out accelerated support measures designed to help this cohort secure employment as early as possible.
For the full 2026 calendar year, China has set clear national employment targets: an average surveyed urban unemployment rate capped at approximately 5.5 percent, and the creation of more than 12 million new urban jobs nationwide. To help meet these goals, officials have rolled out a suite of targeted policy interventions focused on expanding access to large-scale vocational skills training. A core focus of this training push is strengthening the supply of high-quality development resources for fast-growing, high-demand sectors including artificial intelligence, the low-altitude economy, new energy vehicles, and elderly care services – fields that are projected to generate sustained job growth in coming years.
In collaboration with other national and local government departments, the ministry has already organized roughly 59,000 targeted job fairs across the country, connecting job seekers with more than 36 million open employment positions. For migrant workers returning to or seeking new urban employment, authorities have also arranged nearly 1 million “point-to-point” direct transportation trips to remove barriers to labor mobility, Cui added.