China's workforce fell by 41 million in 3 years: Report
What's the story
China's working population has fallen by over 41 million people in the past three years, the country's statistics bureau said on Thursday. This is almost the size of Germany's entire workforce, which is 44 million, according to the World Bank. As per the report, around 733.5 million people in China were employed in 2022, as compared to 774.7 million Chinese in 2019.
Reasons
COVID-19 pandemic, decline in working age driving factors
The data reflects the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on China's economy and the rapid increase in the number of people retiring. This will reportedly put pressure on the government to raise official retirement ages. Stuart Gietel-Basten, a Hong Kong University of Science and Technology demographer, said the drop reflects a shrinking number of people in the "classic age group of the working-age population."
Population decline
People aged between 16-59 decreasing in China
Chinese aged between 16-59 have also been gradually decreasing since 2012. In the last three years, the number dropped by 38 million to 857.6 million, Bloomberg reported. A large cohort of workers is expected to fall out of the 16-59 age group by 2030. China's retirement age, on the other hand, remained unchanged for four years— 60 for men and 55 for women.