Making sense out of China’s economy by the statistics is tough, explains economic analyst Arthur Kroeber in NPR. The percentage of unemployed tells us very little, although there might be some proxies, he muses.
NPR:
“The unemployment rate in China is one of the most useless and ridiculous statistics out there,” says macroeconomic researcher Arthur Kroeber, with Dragonomics. “No one pays any attention to it, because everyone knows it’s a complete fiction.”
It’s not like China isn’t trying. It has a national statistics office that works very hard. But the country is so big, and changing so quickly, that it is actually really hard to keep track of what is going on.
Kroeber suggests proxies: how many shipping crates, how many tons of coal being shipped, amount of electricity production, floor space being built at any given time. “Those numbers,” he says, “are harder to fudge.”
Arthur Kroeber is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.
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