WUHAN, the Chinese city where Covid-19 was first reported, is seeing the impact that its extensive lockdown has had on its economy.
The city, based in the central China province of Hubei, spent two months in a lockdown that paralysed all activity when the novel coronavirus was first discovered. Although there is no official unemployment rate for Wuhan, its gross domestic product for the first quarter of the year fell by 40.5 percent.
On a national level, unemployment in March was reportedly 5.9 percent, equivalent to about 29 million people.
This marks a drop from the record 6.2 percent recorded in February.
Many
analysts have questioned whether the rates reflect the true status with
many migrant and rural workers not being registered.
In
February, Zhang Bin, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences calculated that up to 80 million people could be jobless by
March.
All industries of Wuhan’s economy have taken the hit of the pandemic, but no extensive post-epidemic studies have been conducted on businesses yet.
[Interesting Read]
See Also:
(1) The Coming Collapse of China
(2) Coronavirus: China’s Disappeared Heroes and the Silence of the West
(3) Gordon Chang: China’s Communist Party Has Little To Celebrate
(4) Gordon Chang: China and WHO acted maliciously, tried to deceive the world
