Growing pains
For whatever it's worth, I'm seeing more and more news stories that support the following thesis statement: China's economy isn't everything it's cracked up to be.
Granted, some of that is being fed by Chinese leaders themselves, talking down expectations as it were.
Our latest entrant comes from the BBC:
China is facing a very severe unemployment problem, says Labour Minister Tian Chengping.
He said 20 million new workers entered the labour market each year, chasing only 12 million jobs.
He said employers were complaining about a lack of skilled workers and China had to provide more training.
Speaking on the sidelines of the annual National
People's Congress in Beijing, Mr Tian said the aim was to keep urban
unemployment at or below 4.5%.China is aiming to create 10 million new jobs this year and find work for 5m sacked workers, he added.
Correspondents say China's unemployment figures tend to understate the situation as they only cover the urban jobless.
If true, then we're still a fair distance from the inflection point where labor becomes scarce in China and Chinese leaders decide to let the yuan float freely — or a lot more freely than it does now, anyway.
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