The most educated generation in China’s history was supposed to blaze a trail towards a more innovative and technologically advanced economy. Instead, about 15 million young people are estimated to be jobless, and many are lowering their ambitions.
A perfect storm of factors has propelled unemployment among 16- to 24-year-old urbanites to a record 19.3%. This is more than twice the comparable rate in the US. The government’s hardline coronavirus strategy has led to layoffs, while its regulatory crackdown on real estate and education companies has hit the private sector. At the same time, a record number of college and vocational school graduates—some 12 million—are entering the job market this summer.
This highly educated cohort has intensified a mismatch between available roles and jobseekers’ expectations. The result is an increasingly disillusioned young population losing faith in private companies and willing to accept lower pay in the state sector. If the trend continues, growth in the world’s second-largest economy may suffer. The number of jobless under-25s amounts to a 2% to 3% reduction in China’s workforce. And fewer workers means lower gross domestic product. Unemployment and underemployment also continue to impact salaries for years—a 2020 review of studies reported a 3.5% reduction in wages among those who had experienced unemployment five years earlier.
More young people taking roles in government may leave fewer jumping into new sectors and fuelling innovation.
China's pool of graduates has grown more than tenfold over the past 20 years.
All workplaces have been hit hard by China’s snap lockdowns and strict quarantine measures, but private companies were more likely to lay off workers. Beijing’s main employment-boosting policy has been to order the state sector to increase hiring.
President Xi Jinping may be relieved that the country’s unemployed youth are trying to join the government rather than overthrow it. During a June visit to a university in the southwestern China’s Sichuan province, he advised graduates to “prevent the situation in which one is unfit for a higher position but unwilling to take a lower one.” He added that “to get rich and get fame overnight is not realistic.”
The message is getting through: Graduate expectations for starting salaries fell more than 6% from last year to 6,295 yuan ($932) per month, according to an April survey from recruitment firm Zhilian. State-owned enterprises grew in appeal over the same period, the recruiter said.
But lower income expectations and talent shunning the private sector are likely to lower growth in the long term, challenging the president’s plan to double the size of China’s economy from 2020 levels by 2035—by which point it would overtake the U.S. in size.
The phrase “tang ping”—“lying flat”—spread through China’s internet last year. The slogan invokes dropping out of the rat race and doing the bare minimum to get by, and reflected the desire for a better work-life balance in the face of China’s slowing growth. As the unemployment situation has continued to worsen, many young people have adopted an even more fatalistic catchphrase: “bai lan,” or “let it rot.”
Impossible goals to meet which are set by the bosses, too much pressure in life, never ever making it, may cause many to the “goblin mode” – and they are enjoying it!
“Bai lan” has gained more popularity than “tang ping” – rejecting gruelling, severe competition and high social expectations have prompted many to give up “996” which is essentially working 9.00 am to 9.00 pm, 6 days a week.
But “bail lan” is not unique to China, it is similar to the “slacker” generation in America in the 1990s. And “tang ping” last year was rejection of ultra-competitiveness in Chinese society. Shrinking opportunities, joblessness and unrealistic expectations have led to “bai lan”. Is it the final stages of cynicism amongst Chinese youth remains to be seen.
Reference:
China’s Gen Z is dejected, underemployed and slowing the economy, Bloomberg News, 25 July 2022
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