2023-06-21 18:38:10
China’s youth unemployment rate hit a new high of 20.8% last month, adding to the record-breaking 11.58 million graduates this year, and the pressure on the job market is unprecedented. Graduates choose to postpone graduation; even young people choose to be “full-time children”. (Internet screenshot)
[The Epoch Times, June 21, 2023](Comprehensive report by Epoch Times reporter Xia Song) According to the official data of the Communist Party of China, the youth unemployment rate hit a new high of 20.8% last month, adding to the record-breaking 11.58 million graduates this year, and the pressure on the job market is unprecedented.
Some graduates choose to postpone their graduation, and some young people choose to be “full-time sons” or “full-time daughters”. Young job seekers face the most difficult employment environment in China for generations, and the worst is yet to come, academics say.
According to the official data of the CCP, in May this year, the unemployment rate of young people aged 16 to 24 rose to 20.8%, hitting a new high for two consecutive months since statistics began in 2018. Among them, the situation of college graduates is even worse. Zhuo Xian, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council of the Communist Party of China, estimates that the unemployment rate of college students is 1.4 times that of the overall youth unemployment rate, making them the main body of the youth unemployment population.
As the employment situation continues to deteriorate, college students’ voluntary postponement of graduation has become a hot topic.
Lu Media The Paper reported on June 21 that in an interview with the three postgraduate students, they listed their own reasons: it was hard to find a job, so they had to strive for more internships as current students, so that they would have more time to “study their resumes”. In order to be more competitive in the job market; following failing the postgraduate entrance examination, I decided to find a stable job and enter the system with the qualifications of fresh graduates; time and physical conditions did not allow it, and I hope to allow myself an extra year of buffer period to apply for a doctoral degree.
The interviewee Xiaoyi (pseudonym) is an undergraduate student majoring in electrical engineering at an agricultural university in Northeast China. He originally graduated in June last year, but it was postponed to June this year.
Because he failed the postgraduate entrance examination, Xiaoyi chose to postpone his graduation, and his parents also supported him. The school did not take the initiative to apply for the extension of graduation, and had to “fail” to postpone graduation. He thought of a way-he finished his graduation thesis but didn’t upload it, and didn’t go to defend it, even if he “failed”.
Xiaoyi said that the current employment situation is not very good. The main reason for college students to delay their graduation is to keep their status as fresh graduates to find a job.
The interviewee Xiaoyu (pseudonym) is a postgraduate student majoring in social sciences in a 985 university in East China. I just finished my first year of master’s degree, but I have already decided to postpone my graduation.
Xiaoyu said that the employment situation is relatively tense, and under the pressure of reality, more and more students may choose to take the initiative to postpone graduation in the future. Finding a job is not ideal, and students can only enrich their resumes and resumes during their studies.
The interviewee Xiao Le (pseudonym) is also a graduate student, majoring in journalism and communication at Fudan University. Originally graduating in June this year, the plan was postponed to June 2024.
After Shanghai was unsealed last year, Xiao Le went to an electric vehicle company for an internship in a product operation position. Due to the poor employment situation, there was no opportunity to become a full-time intern. The previous intern had been an intern for six to seven months. He did a lot of work and worked hard, but in the end he was forced to leave because he didn’t have a job offer.
Xiaole said: “This all made me very anxious. I had a problem with my body. I went to the hospital four or five times. My heart was found to have atrial premature beats and premature ventricular beats. Once, I mightn’t even breathe, so I had to inhale oxygen. The doctor said that I have a little neurosis, which is caused by anxiety and stress.”
According to Xiao Le, Fudan University will not limit the postponement of graduation, and there are quite a lot of students who have postponed graduation this year. Xiao Le’s class is in the direction of comprehensive journalism, with a total of regarding 30 students. Except for 10 foreign students, 4 of the other 20 students took the initiative to postpone their graduation.
In early May, the China Youth Daily Social Survey Center and the Questionnaire Network conducted a survey of 2,001 respondents, showing that 73.1% of the interviewed college students said that they had classmates who chose to postpone their graduation. Not completing the credits or dissertation is the first reason for college students to delay graduation, and the second is to retain the status of fresh graduates.
Severe employment situation leads to “full-time children”
In addition to college students who are regarding to graduate who cannot find jobs, Chinese Communist Party officials recently stated that regarding 6 million young people are unemployed. At the same time, the lifestyle of “full-time children” has become popular among young people, and this topic has also sparked heated discussions.
recently,#40-year-old man receives 5,500 yuan per month as a full-time son#、#25-year-old girl is a full-time child and receives 4,000 living expenses per month# Topics lead to discussion.
netizenMidsummer 00026Said: “If you have a job with 9 to 5, weekends, five insurances and one housing fund, and a salary of 4,000, how can you still stay at home and be a full-time child?”
antata瑾瑜Said: “1. The employment environment is not good. Do you want to use this method to guide new employment? 2. The premise of a full-time son is to have parents with generous pensions. 3. Looking at 90% of the children of farmers who graduate, his Parents need blood transfusion, no pension, how embarrassing. 4. Those who have money don’t care whether their children work or not, what regarding those who have no money.”
Accompany Xiao Yan to YanxiangSaid: “High EQ: Full-time daughter. Low EQ: Unemployed youth.”
BBC Chinese reported a few days ago that 29-year-old Julie is working as a game planner in a company in Beijing, and the frequent overtime work over the years has gradually become too much for her. In April of this year, following discussing with her retired parents, she decided to resign and go home to accompany her parents, and at the same time make a good plan for the next period of her life.
In addition to spending more time with her parents, she doesn’t really need much help at home. As an only child, I have never done housework before, and now I start to tidy up the room. The daily expenses are mainly borne by the parents. My mother proposed to give her 2,000 yuan a month for living expenses, but she did not accept it.
The parents accepted her to be a “full-time daughter” at home, because they felt that the reason why her daughter mightn’t find a partner at such an age was largely related to overtime work. So I understand her resignation and hope she can find a job with relatively free time.
In the past two weeks, she has sent more than 40 resumes to intermediary companies and recruiting units, but most of them have gone nowhere, and only two have received interview invitations. In the end, they lost to students who graduated from prestigious schools. Julie said: “Before I resigned, I felt that it was difficult to find a job, but following I actually resigned, I found that it was even more difficult to find a job.”
Lu Xi, an assistant professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, said: “Full-time children are an unavoidable phenomenon under the tide of social unemployment, which reflects the serious decline and shrinking of the entire social economy.”
Many people being full-time children are actually “a kind of self-anesthesia when their self-worth cannot be recognized and accepted by society.” Lu Xi said that from the government’s point of view, new terms such as “full-time children” should be used, or discussions on the Internet should be encouraged. The phenomenon of “full-time children”, avoid using the word “high unemployment rate”. But in the final analysis, “the essence of full-time children is unemployment.”
China in job crisis, worst is yet to come
On June 21, the Hong Kong media “South China Morning Post” (SCMP) reported that economists said that young job seekers are facing the most difficult employment environment in China for generations, and they need to prepare for the difficult times ahead because of this The predicament will not disappear anytime soon, and the worst is yet to come.
China’s youth unemployment rate has remained high since 2020 and has never been lower than 14% since May 2021. Lu Feng, director of the China Macroeconomic Research Center at Peking University, said that it will take at least two to three years before the youth unemployment rate returns to normal.
Rising youth unemployment will only make matters worse as the weak economic recovery adds to employment pressures, he said. “The lackluster economic recovery this year has led to sluggish demand for labor, especially among small and medium-sized businesses, leading to workers extending working hours rather than creating new vacancies immediately.”
In addition, those who lost their jobs or were unemployed during the epidemic also returned to the job market following the epidemic, which intensified the competition among job seekers.
Macquarie Group’s (Macquarie Group) chief China economist Larry Hu (Larry Hu) released a report last week, pointing out that the youth unemployment rate is hovering at a high level, highlighting the difficulty that China is mired in sluggish domestic demand. Businesses are reluctant to hire workers because of weak consumer demand, while a dismal job market has left consumers even tighter and reluctant to spend.
Responsible editor: Gao Jing#
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