More Than 1 in 5 Young Chinese Are Unemployed – Xi Jinping’s Sacrificed Generation.
The "Chinese dream" brandished by President Xi Jinping is in trouble.
Standing on a low wall in front of the prestigious University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in Nanjing, a group of young female students is about to return to their dormitory. “We spend our days hanging out and watching videos online," Fang grins. We should be using our free time to do fun things or study, but our hearts are not in it anymore.”
The bright future they were promised was indeed terribly darkened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We had dreams: I wanted to study in the United States, one of my girlfriends wanted to work in a big bank ... But now, we feel like a sacrificed generation. Frankly,” says the young girl, lowering her voice, “I don't even know what the point of continuing to study is if you end up unemployed.”
Gone are the carefree days of the Chinese economic miracle - from 1979 to 2010 - and the double-digit growths of the 2000s. Today, nearly 20% of Chinese under 24 years old who entered the labor market are unemployed. The downturn has been exacerbated by Xi Jinping's inflexible zero-COVID policy, which has brought entire cities to a standstill for the past two and a half years.
In this environment, many employers are not hiring or are laying off workers. “Among my students who have just graduated, the situation is disastrous,” says a professor at a major Beijing university. “They are having trouble finding work even though they are among the elite. Some estimate that there will soon be 25% unemployment among young people. And these official figures do not include migrant workers and people living in rural areas.”
Added to this are the effects of the campaign to “regulate” the tech sector launched two years ago, which has slowed the rise of national champions, with the CCP forcing them to sell or close down certain subsidiaries. Tencent, Alibaba, JD.com, and Didi have been forced to cut their workforce, reduce their payroll by 10 to 15%, and have frozen new hires.
In 2021, it was the private education sector's turn to be decapitated. The objective? To try to reduce inequality. In the end, nearly 90% of tutoring companies went out of business. Again, young graduates, English or math teachers, are the first victims.
“Public jobs in industrial production and infrastructure will come back. But in the private sector, I don't see companies hiring in the coming months, because Xi Jinping's zero-COVID policy will continue to weigh on consumption and services,” said Tommy Wu, an analyst at Oxford Economics. “The Chinese government and state-owned enterprises may recruit more, but they will only absorb a portion of the applicants, given that the private sector accounts for 80% of urban jobs.”
To make matters worse, “the pandemic has caused the number of Chinese students abroad to drop, increasing competition among graduates,” says Peking University professor Lu Feng. “As for the employment of young migrant workers who have come to the big cities in search of work, it is even more problematic, because they do not have the level of training that meets the new requirements of employers.”
In the absence of a national plan to combat unemployment, local governments are trying to act as shock absorbers.
Yunnan province is promising a $700 subsidy for each young graduate hired locally. In Shanghai, it is $300. While waiting for better days, many are extending their studies. According to China's Ministry of Education, 4.57 million students enrolled in postgraduate studies this year, an increase of 800,000 over 2020. But a better education is far from a guarantee of employment, as many young graduates are pouring into the labor market. Authorities calculate that a record 10.8 million people will graduate from higher education this year.
“Looking for work right now is useless,” Fang sighs. “Jobs are scarce and very poorly paid. I looked at the ads. With my bachelor's degree, I'm offered less than $700 a month. When I started school, it was at least $900. So it's better to keep studying and see if the situation improves.”
Still, some have no choice but to earn a living: social networks are filled with stories of super graduates forced to retrain as home delivery drivers or take a job as a technician. Others choose to escape the oppressive reality. For example, by going on long retreats in monasteries lost in the countryside: there are more than 3,300 sites hosting hundreds of these young Buddhists, according to the online magazine Sixth Tone.
A new phenomenon in a country long obsessed with the race to make money, just like another trend: idleness!
The phenomenon even has a name: “tang ping” (“lying flat”). It can also be broken down into the trend “bailan,” which means “letting it rot.” “When I'm given an assignment at work, I try to avoid it. If I really have to do it, I do it, but badly,” says a young IT worker on a social network. “When China started its reform and opening-up policy in 1979, many jobs were available,” said Shi Lei, an economics professor in Shanghai, quoted by the South China Morning Post. “People had the impression that it was easy to earn money. But that period is over. This pessimism among the youth could even threaten an already struggling economy.”
In any case, it is being closely monitored by the CCP. “A large population of idle youth could challenge the political and social status quo, which the Communist Party wants to avoid at all costs,” warns Adam Ni, editor of the newsletter Neican. The “Chinese dream” brandished by President Xi Jinping is in trouble.
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