China, faced with rising unemployment in the face of the global downturn, is launching a comprehensive survey of the labour market to improve its statistics on joblessness and better inform its policy making. The only official measure of joblessness now is the urban registered unemployment rate, which excludes migrant workers and covers only a fraction of urban residents.
Economists say the real unemployment rate could be at least twice as high as the urban registered rate, which stood at 4.2 percent at the end of 2008. Ma Jiantang, the head of the National Bureau of Statistics, was quoted by the official Xinhua news agency as saying the new survey was being launched because employment was gaining in importance for policy makers, as millions of migrant workers have lost their jobs during the current downturn.
"Providing timely, accurate and reliable labour data is a vital and pressing issue for making correct macroeconomic and employment policies," Ma was quoted as saying. The statistics agency will launch the survey in big cities this year and extend it nation-wide in 2010, Xinhua said.