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By Joe Cash
BEIJING, Feb 28 (Reuters) - China's urban employment
fell for the first time in six decades last year and per capita
spending also marked a rare decline, as harsh COVID-19 curbs
ravaged the world's second-biggest economy.
The new data from the National Bureau of Statistics also
showed the smallest income growth in more than three decades.
The number of China's urban jobs dropped by 8.4 million to
459.31 million, the first drop since 1962.
"The decline of the urban labour force reflects the severe
economic challenge China faced last year," Zhiwei Zhang,
president at Pinpoint Asset Management, wrote in a note to
clients.
He cited the shrinking size of China's labour force, job
losses due to the pandemic and the deceleration of rural workers
migrating to cities as the main reasons for the decline.
Zhang added, however, that he expects this to be a temporary
drop now that China has abandoned draconian zero-COVID policies
aimed at stamping out every outbreak.
China had economic growth of just 3% in 2022- one of the
weakest levels in nearly half a century.
Per capita spending fell 0.2% in real terms, the statistics
bureau data showed. That followed a jump of 12.6% in 2021 and
marking only the third such decline since records for that data
point began in 1980. Retail sales also fell 0.2%, the second
worst performance since 1968.
Xu Tianchen, an economist at the Economist Intelligence
Unit, said a steep drop in income growth for China's lowest
income earners was a key factor behind the weak spending data.
"Before the pandemic, the lowest income group was one of the
fastest growing, but now, quite remarkably, it has become the
slowest income group, dropping from 10.1% (income growth) to
5.2%."
Disposable income per capita in China grew by just 2.9% in
real terms, the second smallest rise since 1989.
Unadjusted, disposable income per capita grew to 36,883 yuan
($5,310) last year, while spending per capita increased to
24,538 yuan.
Rural areas performed better than urbanised zones, with the
disposable incomes of rural households growing 4.2% in real
terms, compared with 1.9% growth for urban residents.
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How Chinese consumers spent their money in 2022 Income growth in China slows ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
(Reporting by Joe Cash; Additional reporting by Kevin Yao and
Liz Lee; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
