The first two months of the national economy stable repair, a number of major indicators compared to last year has been in the fire recovery. March 15, the National Bureau of Statistics held a press conference, the National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Liu Aihua introduced, although by the epidemic repeated and other uncertain factors interference, but the employment rate in general showed a trend of stable recovery. Affected by the epidemic wave, although the offline traditional contact consumption tension is still limited, but the online retail sales year-on-year growth rate of more than 30%. Upgrading trend also feedback in the national economy as the "gas pedal" of the investment side, high technology and livelihood to fill the short board area is still an important flow of capital. "The economy in the first quarter is likely to see year-on-year growth, or even a significant rebound." Liu Aihua said, whether from the performance of the indicators themselves, or the coordination of indicators with each other, the judgment of the current overall economy is to continue to maintain a sustained and stable recovery trend since last year.

1.48 million new jobs in towns and cities

Stabilizing employment is the biggest livelihood project. The government work report for 2021 released a few days ago called for more than 11 million new jobs in urban areas this year and an urban survey unemployment rate of about 5.5 percent.

From the data released in the first two months, the national urban new employment has reached 1.48 million people. Among them, in the month of January and February, the national urban survey unemployment rate was 5.4% and 5.5% respectively. The surveyed unemployment rate for the local household population was 5.7%, while that for the foreign household population was 5.2%. The surveyed unemployment rate for the 31 major cities was 5.5%. The average weekly working hours of employed persons in enterprises nationwide was 46.3 hours, and the surveyed unemployment rates for the population aged 16-24 and 25-59 were 13.1% and 5% respectively. Compared with last December's data, the survey unemployment rate for people aged 25-59 increased by 0.3 percentage points.

"The survey unemployment rate in the first two months was somewhat beyond expectations." Li Chao, chief macroeconomist of Zhejiang Securities, pointed out that the resurgence of small-scale epidemics in winter led to a local blockade of certain side effects on employment; "local New Year's Eve" may have amplified the seasonal effect of the Spring Festival, fewer returnees led to the role of the rural "reservoir" has been weakened. The number of frictionally unemployed people has increased; the withdrawal of last year's temporary tax cuts and fee reduction policies has led to a marginal decline in the willingness of enterprises to hire workers.

Liu Aihua pointed out that this year's new graduates reached 9.09 million, but we still have the conditions to maintain the overall stability of employment. For example, the sustained and stable recovery of the economy will lead to the expansion of employment demand, which is conducive to the stabilization of the employment situation; stable employment policies continue to exert force; the service industry will resume development. In recent years, employment in China's tertiary industry has accounted for nearly half of total jobs, and the service industry has become the main channel for absorbing employment; meanwhile, the potential for flexible employment is relatively large.

In addition, Liu Aihua also admitted that, while the employment pressure exists, some structural contradictions in the job market have also emerged in the recent past, mainly in the labor market mismatch. "In our survey there are some enterprises reflecting the problem of recruitment difficulties, and some skilled personnel, skilled labor recruitment difficulties also exist objectively. This shows the imbalance in the process of economic recovery, the employment pressure of some key groups still exists, and structural contradictions in the labor market are beginning to appear in the recovery process."

Online retail sales rose more than 30%

Stabilizing employment to build the bottom, "double cycle" development pattern, expanding domestic demand has become an important part of the annual economic work. In the first two months of this year, the total retail sales of social consumer goods amounted to 697.37 billion yuan, up 33.8% year-on-year, an increase of 6.4% over January-February 2019, and an average growth of 3.2% over the two years.

Compared with the traditional focus on tapping the potential of domestic demand, this year is more focused on innovation drive. The government work report proposed to "form a strong domestic market, build a new development pattern. The implementation of the strategy of expanding domestic demand and deepening the structural reform of the supply side of the organic combination of innovation-driven, high-quality supply to lead and create new demand".

From the data of the first two months, the trend of upgrading the consumer side is becoming more and more significant. According to statistics, most of the merchandise sales growth momentum is good, consumption upgrading category rapid growth in sales of goods.

During the same period, online retail sales continued to increase. National online retail sales of 17587 billion yuan, an increase of 32.5%. Among them, online retail sales of physical goods amounted to RMB 144.12 billion, an increase of 30.6%, accounting for 20.7% of total retail sales of social consumption goods. On a year-on-year basis, total retail sales of social consumption goods in February increased by 0.56% from January. "While online retailing maintains rapid growth, brick-and-mortar stores are gradually recovering growth against the backdrop of the epidemic being effectively prevented and controlled." Liu Aihua said.

Liu Aihua said that the consumer market in the first two months of this year showed three characteristics: higher growth rate of upgraded commodities, online retailing to maintain faster growth, but food and beverage consumption has not yet been restored to the level of pre-epidemic.

From the point of view of the type of consumption, with the epidemic prevention and control towards normalization, the domestic offline consumption also witnessed a round of strong recovery in the first 2 months, but due to the epidemic is still sporadic recurrence, catering data complete rebound is still waiting for time. According to statistics, in the first two months, food and beverage revenues of 708.5 billion yuan, up 68.9%, a two-year average decline of 2%; retail sales of goods 6,265.1 billion yuan, an increase of 30.7%, a two-year average growth of 3.8%.

"'Spend New Year's Eve locally' is a new thing this year, and many places are advocating spending New Year's Eve locally this year, and have introduced a lot of incentives to encourage their employees to spend New Year's Eve locally." Liu Aihua said that from the monitoring results, "spending New Year's Eve locally" has had a greater impact on the city's cultural and entertainment industries. For example, the movie box office revenue is higher, the city's consumption, online shopping, as well as the courier industry also play a driving and promoting role.

Acceleration of high-tech investment

"At present, both consumption and investment are still in the process of restorative growth." Liu Aihua said. According to statistics, in the first two months of this year, the country's fixed asset investment (excluding farmers) was 4,523.6 billion yuan, an increase of 35% year-on-year; an increase of 3.5% over January-February 2019, and an average two-year growth rate of 1.7%. Sub-industry, the first, second and third industry investment amounted to 103.7 billion yuan, 121.9 billion yuan and 3200.9 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth rate of 61.3%, 34.1% and 34.6% respectively.

In the first two months of this year, domestic growth was faster for high-tech industry investment and social sector investment, with growth rates of 11% and 8.8% respectively, and the growth rate of investment in the health sector reached 20.3%. Liu Aihua said, make up the short board, strengthen the weak, increase the strength of the investment is generally accelerated.

Infrastructure investment in the tertiary industry (excluding electricity, heat, gas and water production and supply industry) increased by 36.6% year-on-year. Among them, the water management industry, public **** facilities management industry, road transportation industry and railroad transportation industry investment growth rate also reached 47.2%, 42.3%, 30.7% and 52.9% respectively. "Judging from these figures, investment has shown restorative growth, better playing the key role of investment in optimizing the supply structure." Liu Aihua said.

It is worth mentioning that in the investment data of the first two months, the private fixed asset investment of 2,618.3 billion yuan, an increase of 36.4 percent year-on-year. High-tech and livelihood to fill the short board type of investment is still the main flow of private capital.

According to statistics, investment in high-tech industries increased by 50.1% year-on-year; among them, investment in high-tech manufacturing and high-tech services increased by 50.3% and 49.8% respectively. In the high-tech manufacturing industry, computer and office equipment manufacturing, medical equipment and instrumentation manufacturing investment grew 99.5%, 66.6%; high-tech service industry, e-commerce services, R & D design services investment growth of 88.4%, 85.3%. Social investment in the field of year-on-year growth of 48%, including health, education investment increased by 63%, 53%.

Liu Aihua pointed out that in the field of investment is now slower to recover is the manufacturing investment, manufacturing investment in the two-year average decline of 3.4%. "Affected by a variety of factors, including the recovery of enterprise investment capacity, the recovery of investment confidence, although the epidemic has been effectively controlled, but after all, the pressure of epidemic prevention and control still exists, the external environment is still complex and severe, the recovery of manufacturing investment will take some time."

Wang Jingwen, director of the Macroeconomic Research Center of the Research Institute of Minsheng Bank (Hong Kong stock 01988), said that, taking into account the fourth quarter of last year, the manufacturing capacity utilization rate has climbed to 78% of the historical high point, the enterprise has to expand capital expenditures, especially equipment renewal and technological transformation of investment needs, coupled with the steady recovery of industrial enterprise profits, the central bank to guide the commercial banks to increase the support of the real economy

This article was published by Beijing Business News