Recruiting in China

Toronto has been named the “most youthful city” in the world, while Shanghai ranked No 20, according to a new survey released on Monday.

The Canadian city was followed by Berlin and New York in the first YouthfulCities Index, a ranking of 25 global cities based on 80 indicators within 16 categories of urban life, including youth employment, financial access, economic status, civic participation, food, sports, music and art.

Toronto scored among the top five in more than half of the 16 categories and ranked No 1 for diversity.

Shanghai, which was the only Chinese city on the index, ranked fifth overall in the category of public space, sports and gaming and had the lowest youth unemployment rate among all surveyed cities.

Other youth-friendly Asian cities included Tokyo, which ranked ninth but came in first for economic status.

Seoul, the 10th most youth-friendly city, ranked first for environmental sustainability.

Some 1,600 young people aged 15 to 29 were surveyed for the index.

The aim of the survey was to “measure cities from a youth perspective”, said Youthful Cities, an organisation that helps youth and civic leaders to build better cities.

“We want to transform the insights that we gather through the Index to inspire a programme of action that allows young people to make their cities more attractive places to live, work and play,” it said.