China’s National Bureau of Statistics published new data on Wednesday showing that urban youth unemployment rose to a two-year high last month. According to the data, the rate of unemployed youth aged 16 to 24 (excluding students) rose from 17.8 percent in June to 18.9 percent in August, nearing the historical peak of 21.3 percent in June 2023. This development underscores how even in a country that censors and “optimizes” negative data, a harsh economic landscape continues to frustrate millions of Chinese youth.
After the peak in 2023, government officials suspended the publication of youth unemployment data for several months and revised their methodology to yield lower figures. Articles discussing the state of the Chinese economy have also been censored online, including one on WeChat from March titled “Ten Questions About the Chinese Economy in 2025,” and a similar list of ten economic questions in 2023. A meme comparing masses of youth at a job fair to the Terracotta Warriors was likewise taken down from the internet in May. Upon hearing about the latest youth unemployment figures, Chinese netizens on Weibo and X joked about the sensitivity and unreliability of such statistics, as documented by CDT Chinese editors:
Stream2024: Great news! Another record high!
请你吃米花糕: Chinese people love being number one. Hearing about any increase makes them instantly happy.
-SSSR-17: Quick, hide the data.
adoublesoul23: This is still “optimized” data. The actual figure is probably around 20-30%.
soulwan_0119: The percentage of young people without stable jobs is over 30%, at least, since official unemployment surveys count delivering food, Didi driving, helping with a family business, part-time clerking, or even going to job interviews as “employment.” [Chinese]
Earlier this month, Barclay Bram at the Asia Society Policy Institute published a report examining how youth unemployment has changed Chinese society. Bram described the variety of issues complicating the labor market for Chinese youth, including 12.22 million new university graduates this year (an increase of 430,000 over 2024), an ongoing trade war with the U.S., and disruptions from AI. Here is an excerpt from a summary of the report:
In addition, China is struggling with deflationary pressures that have reshaped the consumption habits of people aged 20 to 39, the country’s highest-spending demographic, which is a further drag on job creation. Amid rising unemployment and the decline of traditional manufacturing jobs, many college graduates have resorted to delivery work.
“More than 20% of the drivers for the two largest platforms, Ele.me and Meituan, have college degrees; as of 2022, at least 70,000 drivers held master’s degrees,” notes Bram. “That so many highly educated young people find themselves working menial jobs is indicative of the broader labor market.” Bram also discusses the psychological impact of unemployment on young Chinese, including the rise of “revenge against society attacks,” random outbreaks of violence that have occurred with increasing frequency.
“By 2023, the majority [of Chinese citizens] saw inequality as a structural failing, related to unequal opportunities, corruption, and a failing economy. This is important, as CCP rule is bolstered by performance legitimacy,” argues Bram. “As growth wanes and the system is no longer seen as equal or able to provide, the CCP will need new forms of legitimacy.” [Source]
Despair over the difficult labor market has found expression in a viral hashtag phrase, “beauty in the time of economic upswings,” which generated billions of views across Chinese social media. The phrase, often paired with pop cultural references from the early 2000s, evokes nostalgia for the bygone optimism and greater career and consumption opportunities of more prosperous decades. Li Yuan at The New York Times wrote this week about this trend and its relation to contemporary economic insecurity:
Using the hashtag, Chinese who started their careers two decades ago brag about when they received multiple job offers with generous year-end bonuses. Younger users respond with oohs and aahs, remembering their childhoods, a time when China felt livelier, cozier and full of possibility.
The phrase expresses a longing for an era when China’s economy was roaring ahead and, for many, optimism was almost second nature. It doubles as a commentary on the country’s mood today. It especially speaks to China’s younger generation, who are grappling with an economic slowdown, record youth unemployment and tighter social controls.
“Perhaps what we miss is not a ‘golden era,’ but the courage to believe the future holds promise,” read an editor’s note on an article headlined, “How Beautiful Was the Boom? Back Then a Job Hop Meant a 30 Percent Raise. Now Civil Service Exams Are the Only Way Up.”
[…] Where those years encouraged risk-taking, today’s environment leans toward caution. Civil-service jobs, once considered staid, now dominate the conversations of young people looking for havens in a shrinking job market. [Source]
Amid these challenges, young people are attempting to find creative workarounds to stay afloat. Around peak youth unemployment in 2023, Sixth Tone reported that some parents “hired” their adult children as paid, “full-time kids.” Sylvia Chang at the BBC reported last month about another strategy by young people attempting to make the transition into the working world—by pretending to have jobs at mock-up office spaces:
Shui Zhou, 30, had a food business venture that failed in 2024. In April of this year, he started to pay 30 yuan ($4.20; £3.10) per day to go into a mock-up office run by a business called Pretend To Work Company, in the city of Dongguan, 114 km (71 miles) north of Hong Kong.
[…] Such operations are now appearing in major cities across China, including Shenzhen, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chengdu, and Kunming. More often they look like fully-functional offices, and are equipped with computers, internet access, meeting rooms, and tea rooms.
[…] “The phenomenon of pretending to work is now very common,” [says Dr Christian Yao, a senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Management in New Zealand]. “Due to economic transformation and the mismatch between education and the job market, young people need these places to think about their next steps, or to do odd jobs as a transition.
[…] Dr Biao Xiang, director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany, says that China’s pretending to work trend comes from a “sense of frustration and powerlessness” regarding a lack of job opportunities.
“Pretending to work is a shell that young people find for themselves, creating a slight distance from mainstream society and giving themselves a little space.”
The owner of the Pretend To Work Company in the city of Dongguan is 30-year-old Feiyu (a pseudonym). “What I’m selling isn’t a workstation, but the dignity of not being a useless person,” he says. [Source]
