China's overall employment landscape remained stable in the first quarter of 2025, with over three million new jobs created in urban areas, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said on Tuesday.
In the first quarter of this year, 3.08 million urban jobs were created nationwide, an increase of 50,000 compared to the same period last year. In March, the surveyed urban unemployment rate was 5.2 percent, down by 0.2 percentage points from the previous month.
By April 10 this year, over 10,000 recruitment campaigns had been organized, with over 350,000 employers providing 6.97 million jobs. Nearly 7.42 million graduates applying for jobs participated in the events.
Since the start of a special loans scheme for stabilizing and expanding employment, more than 640 billion yuan (over 87.73 billion U.S. dollars) of loans have been taken, benefiting the creation and maintenance of 5.3 million jobs.
In the first three months of 2025, temporary reductions to premiums for unemployment insurance saved enterprises 45.6 billion yuan (about 6.25 billion U.S. dollars), while 3.52 billion yuan (about 0.48 billion U.S. dollars) of subsidies were offered to 588,000 enterprises to help them maintain job numbers.
The country expanded the coverage of social security programs, with the number of participants in basic old-age, unemployment, and workers' compensation insurance schemes reaching 1.071 billion, 244 million, and 297 million, respectively, at the end of the first quarter of 2025.
China adds over 3 million new urban jobs in Q1
