One in five urban youth was unemployed in July, according to official figures. This is three times more than the national average for the working population and a level not seen since 2018.
To make matters worse, nearly 11 million new graduates entered the job market this summer, while the economy is sluggish: 0.4% growth in the second quarter over one year, the lowest for two years.
“I’ve been looking for two or three months now, but it’s really complicated at the moment,” Zhao Yuting, 22, who graduated from English last month, told AFP.
“The longer it takes, the more pressure I will have,” explains the young woman, who has returned to live with her parents.
According to her, experienced candidates are now even scrambling to get jobs usually reserved for young graduates, leaving some of them on the floor.
Zhao Yuting said he sent his resume to dozens of companies. Only a few, she says, called her back for an interview, ultimately rejecting her application due to her lack of experience.
The young woman thought she could earn a living by giving English lessons, the time to find a full-time job.
But recent government crackdowns on tech companies and the private education sector, usually big job providers, have helped dry up the market.
– “Worse” –
The economic situation has been deteriorated in particular by the drastic confinements and quarantines decided by the authorities in the face of outbreaks of Covid-19.
While no official figures exist for the unemployment rate in rural areas, Zhuang Bo, an economist at London-based consultancy TS Lombard, estimates that the number of young jobseekers there could be twice as high as in cities.
“The reality is much more serious than what the figures show,” also underlines Ho-fung Hung, specialist in Chinese economy at Johns-Hopkins University, in the United States.
“If the problem persists without a remedy being found, it could easily generate social instability.”
At a recent employment forum in Shenzhen (south), a paradise metropolis for new technologies, many young graduates were queuing up to talk to recruiters.
But because of the few jobs to be filled, companies favor students from the best universities.
“My goal was to work in Shenzhen, China’s Silicon Valley,” Luo Wen, a young computer science graduate, told AFP.
“But after four months of unsuccessful research, I am ready to work in a smaller town, for less pay,” he sighs.
Graduates who have successfully landed a job have an average first salary that is 12% lower than it was last year, according to the specialized employment site Zhaopin.
– Become a civil servant? –
Other disappointed candidates choose to continue their studies in the meantime.
The growing increase in the number of students in higher education over the past 10 years is also contributing to market saturation, point out education specialists.
“The pandemic and the lockdowns have just made the problem worse,” Hung said.
Faced with this situation, the government is seeking to stimulate recruitment with tax reductions for SMEs.
Premier Li Keqiang conceded that the employment crisis was “serious and complex” and called on state-owned companies to recruit more and offer better conditions to their employees.
Faced with the prevailing gloom, a growing number of job seekers are turning to civil service exams. Last fall, they were two million to register – a historic record.
According to a recent survey by the job search service 51job, 40% of those questioned say they prefer a stable job as a civil servant to a career in business.
But for Zhao Yuting, who says he has neither the means to study further nor the network to get a government job, few options remain.
“I find it difficult to visualize my future,” she explains.
“I feel like I’m stalling in my job search. It’s really a hassle.”
