Rising Youth Unemployment Crisis in China: Uncovering the Truth and Implications for the Future

2023-12-16 03:39:23

[The Epoch Times, December 16, 2023](Comprehensive report by Epoch Times reporter Ning Haizhong) On December 15, the National Bureau of Statistics of the Communist Party of China released a series of economic data. The “youth unemployment rate” continued to be missing. Officials responded that they would wait for the statistics to “further improve.” ” will be released in due course. How will unemployed young people fare after the unemployment rate is eliminated? News shows that a large number of unemployed people are sleeping on the streets in many places and have been evicted by officials. Experts say youth unemployment hides a crisis of social unrest.

Starting from August this year, the National Bureau of Statistics of the Communist Party of China will no longer publish the youth unemployment rate. The last time it stayed in July was as high as 21.3%, a record high. Regarding when the youth unemployment rate will be announced again, Liu Aihua, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics of the Communist Party of China, said at a press conference on December 15 that “relevant information will be released in due course after the relevant statistical work is further improved.”

She also admitted that the number of graduates from China’s colleges and universities continues to increase, and colleges and universities “have a relatively heavy task of promoting employment.”

China’s economy and people’s livelihood have been severely damaged by the Chinese Communist Party’s three-year dynamic clearing. After the lockdown was lifted at the end of last year, the economy continued to be in trouble. The authorities then suddenly stopped publishing youth unemployment rates, raising questions about concealing worsening unemployment.

Current affairs commentator Wang He told The Epoch Times on August 15 that the authenticity and accuracy of the CCP’s survey data itself are questionable. The CCP’s suspension of publication shows that the employment problem of young people in China is very prominent.

On July 17, Caixin cited research by Zhang Dandan, an associate professor at Peking University, who pointed out that if the approximately 16 million non-workers including those lying flat, nibbling on old age, etc. were included, the youth unemployment rate in March this year was 46.5%, much higher than the official figure 19.7%.

In the face of the rising unemployment among young people, the authorities have adopted countermeasures to put pressure on them. College graduates are forced to sign false employment contracts with companies, resulting in so-called “paper employment.” Graduates are also warned not to be “choosy” when seeking employment, and so on. The official media also constantly coined new words to avoid the unemployment problem, such as self-employment economy, light entrepreneurship, light employment, slow employment, etc.

Some Chinese youth have given up their “wolfish” nature of fighting and involving in previous years. A popular topic on the Internet is: “Between going to work and making progress, I chose to lie down.” It has been observed that unemployed young people are largely moving toward “lying down.” “There are various ways of doing this, the more prominent ones are “cheating on the old” or being a “full-time child”.

However, many young people from ordinary families still have to look for jobs in order to make a living, but they often run into obstacles and some have to sleep on the streets.

As many factories and shops have closed across the country, including in first-tier coastal cities, recent online videos show that a large number of migrant workers cannot find jobs and are sleeping on the streets, and local officials have begun to evict them.

High unemployment is a sign of a weak economic recovery. Since the CCP stopped publishing data, the state of China’s youth labor market can only rely on anecdotes and speculation. However, the CCP is doing everything possible to prevent “badmouthing the economy.” In addition to issuing notices asking Internet celebrities to silence, the Ministry of State Security issued a document on the 15th, elevating badmouthing the economy to a national security issue.

Some experts have warned that China’s youth unemployment wave hides the risk of social unrest.

Voice of America reported on December 15 that Steyer, a US think tank, Council on Foreign Relations, said that the development opportunities for Chinese young people have dried up. “The living standards of this generation of Chinese young people will be lower than what their parents could achieve.” This will trigger social unrest in China.

“You’re going to see a generation that’s increasingly disaffected and resentful. They’re no longer willing to tolerate dictatorship because it’s no longer delivering the results they want. So that could create quite a political rift within China,” he said. unrest and will certainly undermine social cohesion.”

Liu Yuanchun, president of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, released the “2023 Mid-term China Macroeconomic Analysis and Forecast Report” at the end of June, and also mentioned the youth unemployment problem. “If not handled properly, it will cause other social problems outside the economic field, and even become a problem.” political issues.”

Editor in charge: Ye Ziming#


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