China's leading business news service reported that on May 22 a new high-level “small leading group” was set up to work on employment. This followed the surveyed urban unemployment rates for the first four months of this year showing that these were all higher than last year's rates. The 2019 Government Work Report set the annual target for surveyed urban unemployment rate at "around 5.5%," marginally higher than last year's target of “within 5.5%.” April's rate was 5.0%

(Comment: Small Leading Groups are intended to deal with tough issues that cross departmental remits. They have considerable policy-making power and, according to Caixin, are a tool favoured by President Xi Jinping. Setting up this group is a clear signal of the government's increasing concern that slowing growth and trade war tensions will lead to job losses. The tech sector in particular has seen significant layoffs over the last few months.)