Rising unemployment in China is pushing millions of college graduates into a tough bargain, with some forced to accept low-paying work or even subsist on their parents' pensions, a plight that has created a new working class of "rotten-tail kids". The phrase has become a social media buzzword this year, drawing parallels to the catchword "rotten-tail buildings" for the tens of millions of unfinished homes that have plagued China's economy since 2021. A record number of college graduates this yea

BEIJING (Reuters) - Rising unemployment in China is pushing millions of college graduates into a tough bargain, with some forced to accept low-paying work or even subsist on their parents’ pensions, a plight that has created a new working class of “rotten-tail kids”.

The phrase has become a social media buzzword this year, drawing parallels to the catchword “rotten-tail buildings” for the tens of millions of unfinished homes that have plagued China’s economy since 2021.

A record number of college graduates this year are hunting for jobs in a labour market depressed by COVID-19-induced disruptions as well as regulatory crack-downs on the country’s finance, tech and education sectors.

The jobless rate for the roughly 100 million Chinese youth aged 16-24 crept above 20% for the first time in April last year. When it hit an all-time high of 21.3% in June 2023, officials abruptly suspended the data series to reassess how numbers were compiled.

    • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      643·
      3 months ago

      Definitely the worst part of using Lemmy. As someone who lives in Taiwan it’s quite annoying getting gaslit by a bunch of cosplayers in random threads.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        91·
        3 months ago

        Yeah. The good news is they’re harmless because “we’re the bad guys” has the exact opposite of mass appeal. Flat Earthers are more likely to cause real-life political change, haha.

        • rumschlumpel@feddit.orgEnglish
          102·
          3 months ago

          Unfortunately, the tankies are also impeding the change we actually need (e.g. expansion of workers rights). It’s harder to get involved in leftism when such a large part of vocal leftists are tankies.

          • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
            41·
            3 months ago

            I’m not really impressed with the other kind of leftist either, TBH. Anarchism is just a vague concept and the movement itself is mostly infighting. All the useful work I see being done is coming from within mainstream activism.

    • ravhall@discuss.onlineEnglish
      667·
      3 months ago

      Something something Marx, Soviet era reference, reason why USA is bad, Vietnam something, never answering the direct question, personal insult goes here, ending in a leading question. Clown face emoji.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        41·
        3 months ago

        Looks like the actual spin was “this is normal and happens everywhere, I see no problem”.

      • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.mlEnglish
        944·
        3 months ago

        Isn’t making up guys that don’t exist so you can feel intellectually superior just the best?! 😀

        • ravhall@discuss.onlineEnglish
          344·
          3 months ago

          Found you. Copy and paste this back to me:

          Tiananmen Square Massacre really happened

          • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
            12·
            3 months ago

            Man, they really can’t seem to post that, even just to “debunk” it. I wonder why? Is there some kind of auto-ban? Some of them really do believe what they’re saying.

            • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.mlEnglish
              11·
              3 months ago

              There’s no point jumping through hoops for someone whose mind is already made up about you. It’s more fun for everyone if we just get into emoji fights and post snarky comments.

              • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
                1·
                3 months ago

                Yeah, but like, if you would put in a little quote of it, and then explain why it’s wrong, the TSM couldn’t be used as some kind of magic charm like this. As it is, everyone’s thinking you must be under duress.

                • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  2·
                  3 months ago

                  As it is, everyone’s thinking you must be under duress.

                  Do people seriously think that? Chinese censorship doesn’t work like that. They don’t care if one of their citizens uses a VPN to post about how the Tiananmen Square Massacre actually happened anonymously on some random foreign website. It’s baffling to me that anyone would think that they do.

                  The reality usually is that asking to copy and paste something vaguely tangential to the conversation at hand just comes across as dismissive and infantilizing. Most people don’t want to jump through hoops to be taken seriously and so they don’t engage further. Assuming that they don’t want to engage because they’re under duress is just letting your confirmation bias run wild.

    • Diplomjodler@lemmy.worldEnglish
      171·
      3 months ago

      It’s all just a 5D chess move by Dear Leader Xi. You filthy capitalist pigs won’t understand.

    • Gsus4@mander.xyzEnglish
      134·
      3 months ago

      This they will say it’s the US’s fault, for corrupting China with capitalism.

    • barsquid@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      They’ll link you to an essay that goes on forever and quotes dozens of philosophers. But it doesn’t actually address your question and it is completely divorced from any real-world data.

    • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1528·
      3 months ago

      What’s there to spin? Youth unemployment is a problem many countries struggle with. China isn’t exactly unique in that regard. According the world bank, China’s youth unemployment is rather unremarkable and is actually lower than many European countries.

      Edit: a link to the world bank which was already cited but hard for some people to find https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.1524.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=true

      • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        294·
        3 months ago

        Citation needed.

        Wait here’s one!

        Looks like youth unemployment in Europe is very comfortably below China’s at around 14% vs China’s 21%. Also notably the European data has been trending down.

        To be fair though we don’t know what the current rate is in China because they stopped publishing the statistic for some reason.

          • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.mlEnglish
            103·
            3 months ago

            That’s not how methodology works. You can’t compare numbers from two institutions and assume they’re comparable because they sound the same. There are often many ways of measuring unemployment or joblessness. If we look at youths without jobs versus youth unemployments in the US, both statistics you can find from the BLS, you would see that those numbers are wildly different.

            Again just look at the world bank data which is using standardized calculations.

            https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.1524.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=true

            • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              10·
              3 months ago

              I’m not sure why your replies are all over the place in the thread here but for what it’s worth I think you’re right. I was incorrect to assert that the figure you presented was based on the new NBS methodology as the world bank uses standard methodology as you said and is the most reliable comparison.

              It’s worth pointing out that they source their statistics from ILO who get their data from national agencies as far as I can tell so it’s not perfect but probably as good as we can get.

              • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.mlEnglish
                62·
                3 months ago

                Thanks for taking a look! I actually appreciate it.

                I also want to clarify, I’m by no means saying that this is a problem that China needs to find a way to address. I just find it weird that people think that anyone would want to put a positive spin on youth joblessness when it’s not outlandishly high relative to other countries.

    • Dagwood222@lemm.eeEnglish
      15·
      3 months ago

      If you’re in the US start applying for Civil Service jobs. City, state or federal.

      You won’t get hired quickly, but when you do get hired you’ll have a great union and solid benefits.

  • hark@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    3 months ago

    That’s really rough. Looking for a job while you don’t have one is miserable enough, but when the job market is that bad then it’s utterly hopeless and filled with despair. The economic outlook in China is looking bad in general and it makes me wonder how much of it will reverberate across the world.