It also showed the country's labor force is getting smaller. That could spell bad news for the world's second-largest economy, as it draws ever closer to overtaking the United States. An accelerated drop in the labor force could make that tough. China's labor force could shrink by about 5% over the next decade, according to calculations by Yue Su, an economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London. "The likely consequent drop in the labor force, which has been falling since 2017, will place a cap on China's potential economic growth," Yue said Tuesday.

Source: CNN May 12, 2021 05:21 UTC