How Chinas Youth Job Crisis Is Reshaping the Economy

China Economy with Fexingo: Beijing's Policies, Trade, and Asia-Pacific Markets · Jul 10, 2026 · 6m · transcript

This episode zeroes in on China's mounting youth unemployment — which hit 18.2 percent in May 2026 — and how it's reshaping everything from consumer spending to social stability. Lucas and Luna discuss why the official urban jobless rate, at 5.4 percent, masks the severity for 16-to-24-year-olds, and how the government's patchwork of gig-economy absorption and state-sector hiring is failing to keep up. They look at Alibaba's latest hiring freeze and the shift of graduates toward short-video platforms like Kuaishou. The conversation connects the job crisis to weak retail…