China is now a country where a 24-year-old handyman has a MSc degree in theoretical physics, a delivery driver studies Psychology   and a PhD graduate ends up joining the police force.

In a struggling economy, these cases are easy to find as China produces more and more graduates, graduating into a job market that is stalling, struggling and lagging the West. Major sectors such as real estate and manufacturing show these weak trends more clearly than ever with the unsold inventory of housing developments at 13 trillion USD if it were fully built. The scale of the problem is vast spreading risks and contagion across to other sectors and further emphasising ‘are we at the bottom’? 

In 2024, the government’s method of measuring youth unemployment was altered to make unemployment figures of the youth look better than they would be otherwise as shown below in fig. 1

Fig 1. China’s Youth Unemployment Rate in Year 2023

Significant Chinese Companies, historically seen as big employers , are offering sub-standard conditions for graduate employment and opportunities in high employment fields are disappearing fast. 

As a result, unemployed graduates have also been turning to utilise their creativity in the more creative industries such as film and television, as a temporary fix until they work out what to do in the future. In other cases, youth are giving up on the hope of finding jobs in roles outside their original degrees and unlike what they had ever imagined.

The lack of confidence in the trajectory of the Chinese economy means young people don’t know what the future will hold for them.

By. Eva Saddiui