China’s youth unemployment crisis is reshaping not only the job market but also the social narrative around work, particularly among the highly educated young people who are struggling to find employment. With job scarcity at an all-time high, many young Chinese are turning to social media to document their experiences, offer advice, and redefine what it means to be unemployed in the digital age.

After China’s crackdown on private tutoring last August, He Ajun, a 32-year-old from Guangzhou, transitioned from the education industry to an unexpected role as an unemployment influencer. He, who has been chronicling her jobless journey online, now offers career advice to her 8,400 followers while sharing her experiences of long-term unemployment. “Unemployed at 31, not a single thing accomplished,” she posted last December, capturing the sentiment of many young Chinese facing similar challenges.

He’s story is emblematic of a larger trend where young Chinese, disillusioned with the traditional job market, are finding alternative ways to make ends meet. He now earns around 5,000 yuan ($700) a month through a combination of ad revenue from her vlogs, content editing, private consultations, and selling handicrafts at street stalls. She believes that freelancing will become increasingly normalized in the future, even for those who remain in the traditional workforce. “Even if you stay in the workplace, you’ll still need freelancing abilities. I believe it will become a backup skill, like driving,” she says.

The Chinese government, meanwhile, has been focusing on unleashing “new productive forces” through policies targeting specific areas like AI and robotics. However, critics argue that this narrow focus has led to weak demand in other sectors, leaving behind a generation of highly educated young people who graduated too late to retrain for emerging industries. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that a record 11.79 million university graduates are entering a job market where layoffs in white-collar sectors, including finance and tech, have become increasingly common.

Urban youth unemployment in China, particularly among those aged 16-24, reached 17.1% in July, a figure that analysts believe understates the true scope of the problem, especially in rural areas. In response, the Chinese government suspended the release of youth jobless data after it hit an all-time high of 21.3% in June 2023, subsequently tweaking the criteria to exclude current students from the statistics.

Despite the government’s efforts to pivot the economy towards high-tech industries, over 200 million people are currently working in the gig economy, which itself is now facing issues of overcapacity. A dozen Chinese cities have already warned of ride-hailing oversaturation this year. Moreover, even government jobs, once considered secure “iron rice bowl” positions, are no longer immune to redundancies. Beijing announced a 5% headcount reduction last year, and thousands of government workers have since been laid off, with provinces like Henan and Shandong seeing significant cuts in their workforce.

For China’s 3.9 million vocational college graduates, the future is equally uncertain. These graduates are mostly equipped for low-end manufacturing and service jobs, and recent reforms aimed at improving vocational training will take years to yield results. The country currently faces a shortage of skilled workers in areas like welding, joinery, elderly care, and digital talent, according to the human resources minister. Meanwhile, many of China’s nearly 48 million university students are likely to face poor starting salaries and contribute relatively little in taxes over their lifetimes, leading some economists to describe the situation as a significant waste of human capital.

Despite Chinese President Xi Jinping’s call in May for officials to prioritize job creation for new graduates, the mood among young workers remains bleak. Nine people interviewed by Reuters expressed frustration and hopelessness about the job market. Anna Wang, a 23-year-old who quit her state bank job in Shenzhen due to high pressure and frequent unpaid overtime, now works part-time as a CV editor and mystery shopper. She recounted how her former colleagues faced widespread pay cuts and were transferred to positions with unmanageable workloads, effectively forcing them to resign.

The government’s attempts to quietly urge companies to stop layoffs, as mentioned in a July briefing for foreign diplomats, have done little to alleviate the situation. Olivia Lin, a 30-year-old who left the civil service in July after widespread bonus cuts and hints of further redundancies, has been searching for a tech job for over a month with no interview offers. “This is completely different from 2021 when I was guaranteed one job interview a day,” she said.

With few opportunities and rising frustration, many young Chinese are turning to social media to share their experiences and offer advice on surviving long-term unemployment. Hashtags like “unemployed,” “unemployment diary,” and “laid off” have garnered a combined 2.1 billion views on Xiaohongshu, the platform He uses. These posts often describe mundane daily routines, count the days since being fired, share awkward exchanges with managers, or offer advice, sometimes accompanied by crying selfies. The increasing visibility of jobless young people on social media is helping to normalize unemployment and reduce the stigma associated with it, according to Yao Lu, a sociologist at Columbia University.

However, Lu also noted that while unemployed graduates understand that blaming the government for their situation is both risky and ineffective, they are more likely to internalize their discontent. Some may even adopt a “lying flat” mentality, a form of passive resistance where individuals opt out of the rat race altogether.

He Ajun, the unemployment influencer, believes that young people should lower their expectations in the face of these challenges. “If we have indeed entered ‘garbage time,’ then I think young people could accumulate skills or do something creative, such as selling things via social media or making handicrafts,” she advises.

As China’s youth continue to grapple with an uncertain job market, their stories are not just about economic hardship but also about resilience, adaptability, and the search for new narratives in a rapidly changing world. While the government focuses on high-tech industries, millions of young Chinese are redefining their paths, finding new ways to survive and even thrive in the gig economy, all while challenging the traditional notions of success and employment.

(Adapted from ThePrint.in)