Some young people who went to Dali to step away from work are seeking jobs again, a Wall Street Journal report said, as official data show urban youth unemployment well above the overall rate.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that unemployment among urban labor-force participants ages 16 to 24, excluding students, was 18% in September 2026. The rate was down from 18.9% in August. Unemployment was 7.4% among those ages 25 to 29, 3.9% among those ages 30 to 59 and 5.2% across the urban labor force overall. The NBS said the younger group’s summer increase reflected graduation season and that the September decline came as graduates found jobs.
The Journal reported that Raye Wang, 26, had gone three years without a full-time job and was considering learning tattooing. “I need to work. I’ve had enough rest,” Wang told the Journal. You Meng, 31, said an extended period out of work can make it harder to regain the drive to work. Some people in the report were relying on savings or family support while seeking work.
The interviews offer individual accounts, not a measure of how common the pattern is across China. The Journal also described people seeking work amid layoffs and greater AI use. It reported that weaker consumer spending had reduced one former livestreamer’s income, while some factory employers in Guangdong struggled to fill manufacturing and engineering roles even as interviewees pursued other fields.
China’s Ministry of Education estimated that about 12.7 million college students would graduate in 2026, up 480,000 from 2025. A March 2026 circular from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the Ministry of Finance called for training and internships, as well as subsidies and tax reductions to encourage employers to hire graduates.
An Oct. 24, 2026, opinion from China’s State Council called for creating jobs related to artificial intelligence and measures to mitigate job displacement from AI applications. The NBS publishes age-group unemployment figures monthly, making later releases the next indicator of whether the September decline continues.
