Cross posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17893195
China is now a country where a high-school handyman has a master’s degree in physics; a cleaner is qualified in environmental planning; a delivery driver studied philosophy, and a PhD graduate from the prestigious Tsinghua University ends up applying to work as an auxiliary police officer.
These are real cases in a struggling economy - and it is not hard to find more like them.
[…]
China is churning out millions of university graduates every year but, in some fields, there just aren’t enough jobs for them.
The economy has been struggling and stalling in major sectors, including real estate and manufacturing.
Youth unemployment had been nudging 20% before the way of measuring the figures was altered to make the situation look better. In August 2024, it was still 18.8%. The latest figure for November has come down to 16.1%.
Many university graduates who’ve found it hard to get work in their area of selected study are now doing jobs well below what they’re qualified for, leading to criticism from family and friends.
[…]
Chinese graduates are being forced to change their perceptions regarding what might be considered “a good position”, Professor Zhang Jun from the City University of Hong Kong says.
In what might be seen as “a warning sign” for young people, “many companies in China, including many tech companies, have laid off quite a lot of staff”, she adds.
She also says that significant areas of the economy, which had once been big employers of graduates, are offering sub-standard conditions, and decent opportunities in these fields are disappearing altogether.
[…]
But many fear they’ll never land a decent job and may have to settle for a role unlike what they had imagined.
The lack of confidence in the trajectory of the Chinese economy means young people often don’t know what the future will hold for them.
[…]
[Edit title for clarity.]
How is this different than US or any other country?
there are billions of people living there. not necessarily different, just on different scale.
Don’t the amount of available jobs scale too?
I feel like this problem would be the same if China was a tenth the size, same goes for US and other countries. It’s a systemic issue, where the ratios of workers and jobs are wrong and unsocial.
Might be, but based on news like this it doesnt seem to be going so well there.
“based on news like this”
I think you’re spot on there. Not saying that the BBC is untrustworthy, but there is always a bias in every news source. Especially when it comes to criticizing foreign policy versus local policy.
I am not disputing that it is not going well there. I’m just saying that similar issues are present in a lot of western countries. I am of course only talking about the subject of this article. If you look at how authoritarian the gouvernement is, stuff does get clearly worse in China compared to most western countries.