China’s Jobs Problem

Hello. Today we look at problems with China’s labor market data and how they may be obscuring underlying weakness, the shift in many emerging market economies toward living with Covid, and how Omicron is spurring renewed reluctance to return to the office.

Economies big and small have long been plagued by shortfalls in measuring employment. Surveyed rates prove inaccurate if the pool of respondents is too narrow; gig and other informal workers are overlooked; headline jobless rates mask lost hours and worker drop outs.