“I’ve had one, two, three, four… five jobs in the last few months,” says Joy Zhang, a 23-year-old graduate.
She counts them on her fingers as she walks through a line of stalls at a local food market in Chengdu, a city in south-west China’s Sichuan province.
“The fact is there are lots of jobs, the problem is whether you are willing to lower your expectations,” she adds, before turning to negotiate a price for snow pea shoots.
Joy’s experience is not unusual in today’s China, where there are more graduates than employers that need them. Out of her class of 32, only around a third have found full-time jobs since graduating in the summer.
More than one in five people between the ages of 16 and 24 are jobless in China, according to official data from August 2023. The government has not released youth unemployment figures since then.
With China’s boom years behind them, millions of young people are confronting a future they did not prepare for – and how they respond will shape the fate of the world’s second-largest economy.
A revolution is taking place in the minds of the country’s Generation Z, according to anthropologist Xiang Biao, an Oxford University professor who spends a lot of time speaking to young people in China.
“The entire life of young people has been shaped by the idea that if you study hard then at the end of your hard work there will be a job and a highly-paid, decent life waiting for you. And now they find out that this promise is no longer working.”
Opportunities have shrunk in a slowing, highly-indebted economy that was hit hard by sudden and total Covid lockdowns. And under Beijing’s unyielding grip, China is now an uncertain place to do business for both hungry entrepreneurs and foreign investors.
Old dreams and new
That was evident at a recent jobs fair in Beijing. Smooth-talking recruiters were mostly offering low-skilled jobs, such as assistants to sell insurance or medical equipment.
“I think the difficulties are just temporary. People with real capabilities will find jobs,” insisted a 25-year-old masters graduate who along with his partner had just moved back from Germany. “The world’s future is in China,” he said.
Recent graduate Tianyu, who studied software engineering, seemed less sure of that. He said that although his skills were “hotly sought after”, there were too many graduates with a similar resume. “So it’s not easy to find a job.”
Some of his friends are aiming for a government career given the glum prospects in the private sector. A record three million-plus Chinese sat for the civil service exam in November.
But Tianyu says: “Many are looking for jobs. Not many found jobs.” And those that did get lucky are working in unrelated fields.
That’s what Joy did too – undeterred, she took the jobs she could find. She begged a tour company to take her on as a guide for the panda park in Chengdu over the summer, she sold hot drinks and she interned at a kindergarten.
“These jobs don’t have good prospects for your future,” Joy says. “They offer low salaries and you are easily replaceable. That’s why most people would rather stay at home.”
She has now accepted a position selling educational material. It’s not her dream job, but she sees it as a way of gaining experience.
Her parents, however, are worried. Joy comes from a small village in the hills, some 400km (248 miles) away. She is the first in her family to make it to university. Her father was so proud he held a banquet in her honour with more than 30 tables of guests.
“My parents expect me to have a better life and better job and income than their generation as I graduated from college,” she says.
“They expect that after they supported my education, I could at least have a job… [but] I will insist on going down my own path at my own pace.”
She stops to buy some hotcakes filled with thick brown sugarcane while pointing out a butcher making spicy Sichuan sausage. It’s delicious but “too fatty” for her, she giggles.
She’s come to love this vibrant city during her years at university. She wants to go further and one day travel to Australia and learn English.
The job market may be difficult, but Joy believes life for her is still easier than it was for her parents, when China was much poorer and dreams were far more distant.
“I think this generation is lucky and blessed,” she says.
“There is lots of time and a lot of chances for us to achieve our goals. We can think deeper about what we really want. Compared to the last generation, we don’t care that much about earning money. We think more about what we can do to achieve our dreams.”
