(Yicai Global) Oct. 24 -- China's labor market continued to improve in the third quarter as the economy picked up and youth unemployment fell for the second consecutive month in September, according to the latest official data.

The surveyed urban unemployment rate was 5.4 percent in the three months ended Sept. 30, down from 5.8 percent in the second quarter, figures from the National Bureau of Statistics showed yesterday. Over the first three quarters it averaged 5.6 percent.

The jobs market has picked up since June, as China’s economy steadied and recovered. The economy overcame a series of unexpected shocks in the third quarter to grow at a faster-than-expected 3.9 percent, with industrial output and retail sales making solid gains, per NBS data released yesterday.

Surveyed joblessness among people aged 16 to 24 fell to 17.9 percent last month, down from a peak of 19.9 percent in July, said Wang Pingping, head of the population and employment department at the NBS.

Urban joblessness climbed to 5.5 percent in September from 5.3 percent in August, mainly because of new Covid-19 outbreaks in some regions, with migrant worker jobs more vulnerable due to the impact of the coronavirus. Joblessness among migrant workers rose 0.5 percentage point to 5.5 percent last month from August, Wang said.

China’s strategy of driving economic growth through innovation also has provided workers with broader employment opportunities, Wang pointed out, noting that the latest version of China’s national job classification list published in July added 158 categories compared with the previous version, which had 97 digital economy-relevant ones, she said.

With the strengthening of various policies to stabilize employment, the jobs market is expected to remain stable this quarter, Zhang Chenggang, associate professor at the School of Labor Economics at the Capital University of Economics and Business, told Yicai Global.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione