The government needs to create at least 8m jobs this year to keep the urban unemployment rate to within 4.5 per cent, said Xinhua. The official definition of unemployment is very narrow, excluding an estimated 150m jobless from the countryside and millions more who are not at work but are still kept on state company payrolls.
Fear of unemployment may be starting to persuade Chinese consumers to save more of their money. According to central bank figures, household bank deposits rose 14.7 per cent in 2001 to Yn7,400bn