The Chinese government, facing an expected seventh consecutive monthly increase in youth unemployment, said on Tuesday that it had instead suspended the release of the information.

The unemployment rate among 16-24-year-olds in urban areas hit 21.3 per cent, a record, in June and has risen every month this year. It was widely forecast by economists to have climbed further last month.

The decision to scrub a widely watched report could exacerbate the concerns expressed by investors and executives who say ever-tightening government control of information is making it harder to do business in China.

Fu Linghui, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics, said at a news briefing that the government would stop making public employment information “for youth and other age groups”. He said the surveys that government researchers use to collect the data “need to be further improved and optimised”.

China’s youth unemployment rate has doubled in the last four years, a period of economic volatility induced by the “zero Covid” measures imposed by Beijing that left companies wary of hiring, interrupted education for many students, and made it hard to get the internships that had often led to job offers.

The announcement drew more than 140 million views on the Chinese social media site Weibo within a few hours. Many people commenting online, some turning to sarcasm, said they believed the government suspended the report to try to hide negative information. Others said they believed the public had the right to be informed.

“Put in a clearer way,” one person wrote, “the current data looks very bad, so don’t look at it for now.” Another weighed in: “This currently has been the only policy that really works to address the high youth unemployment.”

The struggle for young people to find work is another sign of concern about the Chinese economy, the world’s second-largest. It is flagging seven months after the government abruptly ended the “zero Covid” push, plagued by falling exports and souring consumer confidence, as well as a dangerous condition known as deflation or chronically lower prices.

China did issue several other economic reports as scheduled on Tuesday.

Many were gloomy: July retail sales and growth in industrial production — a measure of the output of China’s factories, mines and power plants — fell short of expectations. Investments in real estate developments fell 8.5 per cent in the first seven months of the year.

Earlier on Tuesday, China’s central bank made a series of moves that pushed key interest rates to new lows. The People’s Bank of China, is expected to lower its benchmark lending rate, which determines the interest rates for mortgages and corporate loans, next week.

New York Times News Service