China youth unemployment jumps to 17.1% in July

BEIJING—Youth unemployment in China ticked up to 17.1 percent in July, official figures showed, the highest level this year.

The unemployment rate among 16- to 24-year-olds, which no longer includes students after Beijing altered the formula used to tally joblessness, was 13.2 percent in June, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Soaring joblessness among young people is just one of the hurdles the world’s second-largest economy is facing, alongside a heavily indebted property sector and intensifying trade issues with the West.

The closely watched metric peaked at 21.3 percent last June, before authorities suspended publication of the figures and later changed their methodology to exclude students.