Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1709
How is the unemployed counted?
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in May this year, China’s urban surveyed unemployment rate was 5.2%, unchanged from the previous month. However, the surveyed unemployment rate of youth aged 16-24 reached 20.8%.
There are about 96 million young people aged 16 to 24 in China. But 20.8% unemployment does not mean 20 million (9600*20.8%) young people are unemployed.
According to the statistical bulletin of the Ministry of Education of China, there are more than 57 million students in secondary vocational education (technical secondary school, vocational high school) and higher education (undergraduate, junior college, postgraduate) in China, and after excluding nearly 17 million fresh graduates, there are still 40 million students reading. Excluding the population currently studying, there are about 55 million young people aged 16-24 in China.
The 55 million people are also not the denominator of the unemployment statistics. By global practice, unemployment statistics only count people who are available for work and are trying to find one. There are differences in the measurement of willingness to work in various places. According to the standards of the National Bureau of Statistics of China , an “unemployed population” needs to meet three conditions at the same time:
- no job;
- Have looked for a job within three months before the survey time point;
- Can start working within 2 weeks if a suitable job is offered.
If a person chooses to take the postgraduate entrance examination and does not want to find a job; or if he wants to find a job but cannot find a job, and gives up for more than three months, he is not included in the statistics.
This year, there are 15 million fresh graduates from colleges, technical secondary schools and vocational high schools in China, and they are also included in the unemployment statistics—provided they are willing to work. Fu Linghui, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics and director of the National Economic Comprehensive Statistics Department, said at a press conference today, “Some students are not looking for jobs, and they have no desire to work, so they will not be counted in the unemployment rate.”
Among the 55 million Chinese young people aged 16-24, excluding those who take the public examination and postgraduate entrance examination and those who do not intend to work, more than 33 million people are actually looking for a job in the end. Fu Linghui said, “Among them, more than 26 million have found jobs, and about 6 million are still looking for jobs.”
More than 6 million/more than 33 million, and the final statistical unemployment rate is 20.8%. According to the caliber of the National Bureau of Statistics, to be classified as having a job, a person needs to “work for 1 hour or more in order to obtain labor remuneration or business income during the survey reference week”, or “be on the job due to vacations, temporary suspensions, etc. work”. (Qiu Hao)
EU legislation to regulate AI
In 1996, the Internet was just beginning to spread. A group of technology pioneers published “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,” declaring that governments have no right to interfere in cyberspace, “You are not welcome here with us. You are not welcome where we gather.” sovereignty.”
Internet regulation in countries around the world is indeed far slower than the development of the Internet. The first systematic data regulation law, GDPR, was not passed in the EU until 20 years after the Declaration was published. However, with the experience of Internet regulation, the response speed of governments to artificial intelligence has been significantly accelerated.
In 2021, artificial intelligence is still considered an outdated wave, and the European Union has proposed a framework for regulating artificial intelligence. Legislation has also accelerated following the emergence of generative AI such as ChatGPT. Seven months after ChatGPT was released, the world’s first regulations governing artificial intelligence emerged.
On June 14, the European Parliament, the main legislative body of the European Union, voted to pass the draft “Artificial Intelligence Act” (AI Act), which strictly limits the use scenarios and scope of artificial intelligence technology, and stipulates the regulations that developers of artificial intelligence models need to abide by. Violators are subject to a fine of 6% of gross global revenue. Representatives from the European Parliament, EU member states and the European Commission will finalize the terms before the end of the year. Some of the requirements of the AI Act are:
- Generative artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, needs to disclose which content is generated by artificial intelligence, design models to prevent harmful content from being generated, and disclose what copyrighted data was used to train the model.
- The use of biometric identification technologies such as facial recognition in public places is prohibited.
- Toys, aviation, automobiles, medical equipment and elevator products using artificial intelligence technology must pass a comprehensive assessment before entering the market and continue to be supervised.
The most active call for regulation is the technology-leading OpenAI. In the past few months, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (Sam Altman) has visited hundreds of lawmakers and dignitaries in the United States, and then traveled to South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia to communicate with dignitaries from many countries to talk about the risks of artificial intelligence and seek Collaborative regulation of artificial intelligence.
But EU AI regulations are not the kind of regulation Altman aspires to. He hopes to establish a multinational regulatory organization similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency, responsible for reviewing and determining which companies have the right to develop and use large models. Mark Anderson, a partner at the venture capital firm a16z, believes that CEOs who seek such regulation are no different from bootleggers who benefited from prohibition. Startups and the impact of open source competition can make more money.”
And new EU regulations requiring technology companies to disclose what copyrighted data was used to train models may weaken the advantage of technology leaders.
On the one hand, the current method of training a large artificial intelligence model is relatively transparent, and the quality of a large model mainly depends on the data set used for training. When GPT-4 was released this year, OpenAI no longer released specific training data on the grounds that the competition was more intense.
On the other hand, EU regulations require OpenAI to disclose data sources. However, AI companies generally collect data privately to train models, which is usually difficult to find.
The Information reported today that OpenAI is collecting YouTube data to train the next generation of large models that can handle text, images and other data. As required, YouTube content belongs to Google and the video creators, and OpenAI has no rights to use it.
According to media reports, Altman once publicly stated that OpenAI may have difficulty complying with EU regulations and would consider withdrawing from the EU. Since the beginning of this year, countries such as Italy have banned ChatGPT due to data issues. (He Qianming)
European regulators seek to break up Google
On June 14, the EU’s top antitrust regulator again launched antitrust charges against Google and sought to spin off its advertising technology business. The reason for the allegations is that Google abused its dominant position in advertising technology to suppress competitors. Google said it disagreed with the European Commission’s statement, arguing that “the Commission’s investigation focused on a narrow aspect of the advertising business.”
As the world’s largest advertising platform, Google’s advertising business revenue will be US$224.5 billion in 2022, accounting for nearly 80% of its total revenue. Moreover, Google’s advertising business and content ecology are closely related and inseparable. It has no reason to accept this split, even if the worst result is to withdraw from the European market.
Since the entry into force of the EU data protection law GDPR in 2018, the frequency and amount of fines imposed by EU regulators on Google, Meta, Apple and other US technology giants have continued to rise. The accumulated fines have exceeded tens of billions of dollars, mainly targeting unfair competition, illegal tax avoidance, Violation of user privacy and data security issues.
Previously, Google was fined three times by the European Union on the grounds of antitrust, with a total fine of more than 8 billion US dollars. Google has appealed all three times, and this time should be no exception. Because the EU’s enforcement process is lengthy, after the appeal, the fined company has more than one year to mediate with EU regulators.
Most of the numerous penalties imposed by European regulators, although often in “staggering” numbers, were not fully implemented in the end. Apple was sued by the EU for US$20 billion due to tax issues in 2016, and it is still under appeal. If Apple wins the lawsuit, it may be exempted from huge fines. Google’s “Android Monopoly Case” began in 2015, and it was not until September 2022 that the final judgment was lost, and the fine was reduced by 210 million US dollars. (Intern Fu Xiaoyu)
Foxconn lowers peak season recruitment bonus
According to the “China Times” report, Foxconn in various places has started to recruit workers in the peak season, but the entry incentives have been lowered compared with last year. For example, Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory has a resignation and return bonus of 7,500 to 8,000 yuan this year, and the Shenzhen Guanlan/Longhua factory’s entry bonus is 6,980 yuan, which is about 6.7% to 21% lower than last year.
According to the usual practice, Foxconn will expand its recruitment every summer to prepare for the mass production of the new iPhone released in the autumn, and produce some parts with a long cycle in advance. However, the reduction in bonuses was not due to weaker demand for orders from major customers.
Ivan Lam, a senior analyst at Counterpoint Research, an industry research firm, told Wanwan Finance that the initial orders for the iPhone 15 this year are expected to be little different from the previous generation, and Apple has strong control over the supply chain. It will be so early, but it will wait for the release of the new machine and then dynamically adjust it according to the market situation.
Dan Ives, an analyst at investment bank Wedbush, also said in a report released recently that it is estimated that about 250 million iPhones have been used for more than 4 years, and the replacement needs of these owners may bring surprises to Apple. The iPhone 15 series will increase in price by $100 to $200.
The decline in wages is more a reflection of the current supply and demand game in the domestic labor market itself. According to the wage index released by the Institute of New Citizen Industry and Innovation of Shanghai University, since the middle and late March, the wages of flexible workers in the domestic manufacturing industry have rebounded, but they are still significantly lower than the same period last year.
In the same period last year, some regions in China had just emerged from the peak of the epidemic, and manufacturing factories had to adopt stricter prevention and control measures such as closed-loop operations. Many workers were reluctant to enter factories due to health and other considerations. In addition, some factories need to catch up with orders delayed by the epidemic, and wages will naturally rise under the shortage of labor. (Qiu Hao)
The National Bureau of Statistics stated that the national economy continued to recover in May, but the foundation is not yet solid
The National Bureau of Statistics released monthly economic data on June 15 , mentioning that the national economy continued to recover in May, and the transformation and upgrading continued to advance. It is highlighted that efforts are still needed to promote high-quality economic development.
According to the data classification of the Bureau of Statistics, the specific performance of industrial production, fixed investment, consumer retail, and real estate is as follows:
- The growth rate of output value of private industrial enterprises was lower than that of the whole. The output value of industrial enterprises with a main business income of more than 20 million yuan increased by 3.5%, of which private enterprises increased by 0.7%. Before 2016, the growth rate of private enterprises was significantly higher than that of the industry as a whole, but since March 2022, it has generally lagged behind, and the gap has widened in the past two months.
- The cumulative investment in fixed assets of domestic private enterprises fell. In the first five months, the investment in fixed asset projects with a planned total investment of more than 5 million yuan and all real estate development projects increased by 4% year-on-year. Among them, the cumulative investment of domestic private enterprises fell by 0.1% year-on-year, which was the first time since October 2020 that it turned negative.
- Cars and online consumption drive overall retail sales. In May, the national retail sales of social consumer goods increased by 12.7% year-on-year. After deducting automobile consumption, the growth rate slowed down to 11.5%. In the first five months, the proportion of online physical goods sales rose to 25.6%. Due to the particularity of the consumption scene in the past few years, we recalculated the four-year average growth rate of consumption data in May based on 2019, and found that the growth rate of the overall social retail and catering revenue slowed down to varying degrees compared with the previous two months. The four-year compound growth rate of online physical revenue reached 14%, which is a new high this year.
- The decline in real estate investment expanded . Due to the sluggish start of new housing, which accounts for the highest proportion of real estate investment, the cumulative real estate investment in May decreased by -7.2% year-on-year, and the growth rate increased by 1 percentage point month-on-month. During the same period, the area of newly started housing was the lowest point since 2013. However, due to the pick-up in the property market in March and April, the payment for new houses has been credited to the account one after another. Among the funds consumed by developers, the proportion of deposits, down payments and mortgage loans has increased to 54%. (Lin Guangying)
How do economists view the May credit data?
This week’s important financial data also includes the financial data released by the People’s Bank of China on Tuesday, showing that the increase in social financing in May decreased by 1.31 trillion yuan year-on-year, which was lower than expected. Economists generally believe that the data point to the lack of endogenous demand, especially the financing demand of private enterprises, and the need to increase credit and other support. On the same day, the central bank lowered the policy interest rate and issued 22 measures to reduce the cost of enterprises.
CICC Research Department: The peak of Chinese people’s prepayment of loans has passed.
In May, the short-term and medium- and long-term loans of residents increased by 14.8 billion yuan and 63.7 billion yuan year-on-year respectively, and the growth rate of the balance of residents’ loans increased slightly. Based on this, the CICC Research Department judged that the deleveraging trend of Chinese residents repaying their loans in advance last year may have slowed down. In addition, considering that real estate transactions fell month-on-month in May, but mortgage increments rose instead of falling, the April peak of prepayment may have passed.
Li Qilin, Director of Hongta Securities Research Institute: Enterprises dare not increase leverage easily.
The weak financial data this time, like the previously released low PMI data, price data, and export data, all point to a slowdown in economic recovery. The decrease in corporate bonds is related to the decrease in urban investment financing and the difficulty in issuing bonds in real estate and other industries. Although the new medium and long-term loans are higher than in previous years, they may still be related to the needs of infrastructure and manufacturing transformation and upgrading. Due to the decline in external demand and the slow recovery of domestic demand, companies have unstable expectations and dare not easily increase leverage.
Wang Tao, Chief China Economist at UBS Securities: The increased loans may be used to repay debt interest.
Credit growth was strong in the first four months of this year, but it did not lead to a substantial recovery in investment or economic activity. One reason may be that more new credit was used to repay interest on existing debt, especially local government financing vehicles with tight cash flow and real estate developers. It is estimated that 15-20% of new credit this year may be used to repay interest payments on stock debt, which means that the actual flow of new credit to the real economy may be less than the official data. May did not reverse the trend either.
Zhong Zhengsheng, Chief Economist of Ping An Securities: The growth rate of medium and long-term loans of enterprises may decline.
In May, corporate medium and long-term loans continued to increase year-on-year, and the outstanding performance has lasted for nearly a year. In view of the high base in June last year and the slowdown in the momentum of economic growth (manufacturing PMI declined in May), the growth rate in June is expected to decline. In the first four months of this year, the profits of industrial enterprises above designated size shrank by 20% year-on-year, and the year-on-year growth rate of financial expenses turned from negative to positive, showing that profits were under pressure and pressure on interest payments increased. The average number of employees during the period decreased by 3.2% year-on-year. In this case, “cutting interest rates” will help companies “reduce costs” and promote “stabilizing employment” and “stabilizing investment.”
Xu Gao, Chief Economist of BOCI Securities: Real estate and infrastructure are the two main financing needs.
Since 2021, real estate financing has shrunk significantly, and local government financing platform financing has also tightened significantly. With the two major demand-side financing constrained, the reduction of short-term interest rates may not be able to stimulate financing to the real economy. Instead, it may push up leveraged transactions in the financial market, such as raising bond prices significantly and pushing up liquidity-sensitive sectors of the stock market. (Note: In 2021, about half of the total domestic fixed investment will come from real estate and infrastructure.) (Lin Guangying)
OTHER NEWS
JD.com provides “tens of billions of subsidies” for 24,000 products, competing with Pinduoduo.
According to the data compiled by Jiuqian Zhongtai on June 7, the number of SKUs of JD.com’s tens of billions of subsidized products has risen to 24,000, double that of two weeks ago. Among them, the proportion of digital home appliance SKUs dropped to 11%, and the proportion of pets, sports and outdoor products increased, especially the proportion of clothing reached 34% during the “618” period. Compared with Pinduoduo, there are only 1911 SKUs of 10 billion subsidized products that overlap between the two, and the comparable rate has dropped from 12% in March to 8%. Among them, JD.com’s price is about 20% to 30%, and 76% comes from third-party sellers. .
He Xiaopeng said that the company entered a “weak positive cycle” in the third quarter.
At the 15th China Automobile Blue Book Forum on June 15th, He Xiaopeng mentioned in his speech that no new car manufacturer has really got a ticket because as software becomes more and more important and the industry changes rapidly, the leader may Only a year or two ahead. So have a long-term thinking, rather than follow the success of the moment (such as hybrid cars). He said that the company encountered many difficulties last year, but his judgment is that starting from the third quarter of this year, Xiaopeng Motors will enter a weak positive cycle, and it will enter an ultra-high-speed positive cycle from the third quarter of next year.
In the first quarter of this year, Xiaopeng Motors’ revenue fell by 46% year-on-year, with a pre-tax loss of 2.3 billion yuan, and the gross profit of the entire vehicle turned negative. Xiaopeng focuses on intelligence. In contrast, Weilai’s label is user operation, and Ideal runs with extended-range hybrid vehicles. In May of this year, ideal sales were more than double that of the other two combined.
Blind box supervision: Merchants need to express the probability of extraction.
The State Administration for Market Regulation issued the “Guidelines for the Code of Conduct for Blind Box Operations (Trial)”, requiring operators to disclose key information such as the product value, extraction rules, and extraction probability of blind boxes. In August last year, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a draft for comments, requiring operators to disclose key information in a prominent manner, and must not manipulate the extraction results through the background and adjust the extraction probability at will. In addition, the State Administration for Market Regulation also encourages operators to limit the extraction time, amount and number of extractions, prohibits blind boxes such as drugs, medical devices, and live animals, and does not sell blind boxes to minors under the age of 8.
The WeChat video account requires free shipping for products priced at 30 yuan or less, to crack down on low pricing and high shipping costs.
The WeChat video account released new regulations yesterday, requiring small video store merchants to set up free shipping services for products priced at 30 yuan and below, and the free shipping range covers Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and overseas regions. Live streaming and video shopping are prone to impulsive consumption. Before that, some merchants set low prices for goods, but had to pay higher than normal postage. If the product does not comply with the new regulations by June 20, it will be removed from the shelves.
The State Administration for Market Regulation requires platform companies to self-check user agreement rules.
The State Administration for Market Regulation launched a five-month special campaign to optimize platform agreement rules, requiring platform companies to self-examine agreement rules, emphasizing the protection of the interests of consumers and operators on the platform. In the future, the State Administration for Market Regulation will guide platform companies to supplement the key clauses missing in the agreement rules, give feedback to platform companies on the problems in the agreement rules, and promote revision and improvement.
Didi has become the most valuable company in the OTC market in the United States.
Didi delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in June last year and started over-the-counter trading (OTC pink sheet market). In one year, its market value rose by about 20% a year to 14 billion US dollars, making it the company with the highest market value in the OTC market in the United States. Didi currently accounts for more than 70% of China’s online car-hailing market, and institutional investors such as Macquarie Group still hold shares in Didi.
Douyin will broadcast live the entire Hangzhou Asian Games.
Bytedance (Douyin Group) has become the right-holding broadcaster of the Hangzhou Asian Games and the live broadcast partner of China Central Radio and Television. Users of platforms such as Douyin and Toutiao can watch the live broadcast and replay of the entire game. Previously, Douyin had bought the live broadcast rights of the World Cup in Qatar, the Copa America and the Bundesliga.
Second-hand housing prices in Beijing fell in May for the first time this year.
The National Bureau of Statistics released the housing price changes in 70 large and medium-sized cities in May. Among them, the increase in the sales price of new commercial housing in first- and second-tier cities decreased, the price of new housing in third-tier cities remained the same as last month, and the overall sales price of second-hand housing decreased month-on-month. In particular, Beijing’s second-hand housing sales price index fell by 0.6 from the previous month, which was the first month-on-month decline this year.
Temu surpassed SHEIN in US sales in May.
According to media statistics on credit card and debit card information, Temu’s US sales in May were 20% higher than SHEIN’s. We also introduced yesterday that Temu’s GMV in May rose to US$635 million, 4.5 times that of the beginning of the year. Temu first landed in the U.S. market in September last year. In February this year, it began to aggressively promote and launch in more countries. It currently covers 18 countries and regions in North America, Europe, and Oceania. It may be launched in Japan in the near future.
Zhou Shouzi said TikTok will invest billions of dollars in Southeast Asia.
At a forum event in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia today, TikTok CEO Zhou Shouzi said that the company plans to invest billions of dollars in Southeast Asia in the next few years to promote e-commerce business. TikTok did not disclose specific spending items, but said it would fund small merchants willing to join its e-commerce platform. TikTok has more than 300 million local users, but so far it has not been able to effectively convert the huge number of users into e-commerce revenue.
The Fed paused in raising interest rates.
On June 14 local time, the Federal Reserve announced that the target range of the federal funds rate would remain unchanged at 5.0% to 5.25%. This is the first time the Fed has announced a pause in raising interest rates in this cycle, after the Fed has decided to raise interest rates ten times in a row and announced three consecutive hikes of 0.25%. The suspension of interest rate hikes this time is basically in line with market expectations, but in the economic forecast released by the Federal Reserve at the same time, it hinted that there will be two more interest rate hikes this year.
Tesla has increased the market value of Toyota in 13 days.
Tesla shares rose nearly $240 billion in market capitalization after a record 13-day winning streak, more than the total market capitalization of Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp. Toyota is currently the second most valuable auto company in the world. After tearing down a Model Y in March, Toyota announced plans to build a new electric vehicle platform to roll out new electric vehicles starting in 2026. A few days ago, Toyota said it will adopt the integrated die-casting technology proposed by Tesla to improve the performance and reduce costs of future electric vehicles.
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