That mismatch between expectations and opportunities is driving resentment through the estimated 20 million unemployed young people around the country.
“China’s employment market is huge,but competition is fierce,” said 21-year-old Cui Yinzhen,an English major at Beijing Normal University,who plans to move overseas to study and find work.
“I haven’t considered finding a job in China because salaries are often not satisfactory,overtime is common practice,and personal relations matter a lot,all of which kept me away.”
Cui said half of his classmates were job-hunting while the other half were preparing for postgraduate tests. “Because many companies require a postgraduate degree,” he said. “To keep up with everyone else,many try to secure a job even though salaries are not high at the beginning.”
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In Shanghai and Beijing,higher levels of family income have meant some young workers are choosing to wait for a prestigious job in a top-tier firm rather than jumping into a smaller company to make ends meet. Others simply cannot find work as firms in critical sectors such as technology and manufacturing pull back on hiring as the broader economy struggles to recover.
By April the Chinese government had organised more than 110 job fairs across the country this year. In Beijing last week,graduates arrived at stalls at one fair hoping to find a position,only to find out some stallholders did not have any jobs on offer and had only set up shop to keep authorities happy.
“I looked around the job fair today but couldn’t find any,” said former human resource manager Tao Chunliang.
“It’s a kind of formalism. I worked in Shanghai before coming to Beijing in February. In Shanghai,companies focus on efficiency;if they don’t need more employees,they wouldn’t take part in such events.”
Zhuo Xian,vice department director at the Development Research Centre of the State Council,warned in March that growing levels of youth unemployment would impact the entire country.
“The anxiety,disappointment and confusion generated by college students,who are the most energetic group in society,may affect the confidence of the whole society in the prospects for economic development,” he said.
The state is increasingly ready to intervene. The number of graduates hired by Chinese state-owned enterprises last year surged 24 per cent,adding 760,000 workers to government-run companies in 2022 alone,according to the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. In April,Chinese media outletYicai Global reported 10 ministries and government departments had carried out “Spring Breeze Action”,holding 58,000 recruitment activities across the country.
The Ministry of Education announced last month it would hire 52,300 college graduates this year to work as primary and middle school teachers in impoverished rural areas.
In Guangdong,where people aged between 14 and 35 comprise 35 per cent of the population – higher than many other Chinese provinces – local authorities have set a target of getting 300,000 people into the countryside.
The impacts of decades of urban economic growth are showing up in the rivers that connect the cities with the villages.
Chen Xuanyi,a 24-year-old university student who returned to his hometown of Jinli as a rural volunteer,told theGuangzhou Daily that material life had become increasingly abundant.
“But at the same time it also brought some negative impacts,the river we used for dragon-boat racing,due to serious water pollution,has become a stinky ditch,” he said.
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“The communities became ugly-looking and the rural areas became dirty and poor. These problems made me realise the necessity of the country’s rural revitalisation strategy.”
More than 400 kilometres away in Aojiang,social worker Zheng Miaoluan praised the work of the Guangdong party youth league in getting students back into the country.
“I learnt that many poor and backward villages have undergone radical changes through a series of assistance measures,and the villagers have led a good life as a result,” she told government officials in April.
“I am a farmer’s child,born and raised in the countryside,and I hope I can participate in the work of rural revitalisation to make my hometown beautiful and the villagers rich.”
Xi will be banking on workers like Zheng to help get China’s youth moving again.
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