Despite the country’s slowing economy, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has repeatedly stated how happy he is with the strength of China’s job market. As a result, he sees little need to ease policy to spur growth, reports The Wall Street Journal. 

Chinese officials have attributed the nation’s low unemployment rate to a drop in the working-age population, along with the development of the service sector, which is more labour-intensive than manufacturing.

However, a deeper look into the government’s jobs data shows that the current employment situation is more worrisome than it appears. Across China’s cities, 10.8 million new jobs were created during the first nine months of the year, an increase of +1.5% compared with the same period of 2013, according to official data released on Friday. The slowest rise in five years.

Migrant workers tend to bear the brunt of economic slowdowns, with more than a fifth of them working in the construction sector, which is highly sensitive to economic cycles. Employers also tend fire migrant workers first if business is bad rather than laying off those with permanent resident status.

Li Shi, an economics professor at Beijing Normal University, commented: “Over the past few years, especially after 2009, the government stepped up investment in infrastructure and property market. That has created many job opportunities for migrant workers. But now a sluggish property market has affected migrant workers.”

The global financial crisis cut China’s economic growth from double-digit rates to +6.6% in early 2009, and left some 200 million migrant labourers facing unemployment.

The government responded with a CNY 4 trillion (USD 650 billion) stimulus package that helped China rebound rapidly from the global downturn, but also resulted in a series of problems; such as industrial overcapacity and environmental pollution.

It is difficult to gauge the impact on employment, since neither recent official nor private data are available. Most surveys are only made on an annual basis.

A recent spike in the number of strikes and labour disputes recorded by the China Labour Bulletin may reflect strains in the labour market due to the downturn in construction. The Hong Kong-based labour group, in a statement earlier this month, said that it recorded a total of 372 incidents in the third quarter this year, more than double the same period of last year.

“Developers are saddled with declining sales, weaker credit availability and continued pressure from local governments to buy land. In these situations, it is the construction workers who are always the last to be paid,” the statement said.

For Professor Li however, this points to another worry: even migrant workers with jobs can be vulnerable to exploitation: “I’m not worried about migrant workers not being able to find jobs as long as the economy still grows. What worries me is whether they are been treated in a decent way at work.”