「爛尾娃」：中國青年失業率上升催生新工人階級 (1/2)

Recently Yahoo News on-line picked up the following:

'Rotten-tail kids': China's rising youth unemployment breeds new working class (1/2)

Ryan Woo, Ethan Wang

Tue, August 20, 2024 at 6:04 p.m. PDT·4 min read

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.

One year on, youth unemployment remains a headache, with the reconfigured jobless rate spiking to a 2024 high of 17.1% in July, as 11.79 million college students graduated this summer in an economy still weighed down by its real estate crisis.

President Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed that finding jobs for young people remains a top priority. The government has called for more channels for the youth to access potential employers, such as job fairs, and has rolled out supportive business policies to help boost hiring.

"For many Chinese college graduates, better job prospects, upward social mobility, a sunnier life outlook - all things once promised by a college degree - have increasingly become elusive," said Yun Zhou, assistant professor of sociology, University of Michigan.

Some jobless young people have returned to their hometown to be "full-time children", relying on their parents' retirement pensions and savings.

Even those with post-graduate degrees haven't been spared.

After spending years climbing China's ultra-competitive academic ladder, "rotten-tail kids" are discovering that their qualifications are failing to secure them jobs in a bleak economy.

Their options are limited. Either they cut their expectations for top-paying jobs or find any job to make ends meet. Some have also turned to crime.

Zephyr Cao obtained a master's degree from the prestigious China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing last year.

Now 27, and back in his home province of Hebei, Cao has stopped seeking full-time work after lower-than-expected wages made him question the value of his education.

"If I worked for three or four years after my undergraduate studies, my salary would probably be similar to what I get now with a master's degree," Cao said.

Cao said he was considering pursuing a PhD in hopes his prospects would improve in a few years.

(to be continued)

Translation

北京（路透社） - 中國不斷上升的失業率正迫使數百萬大學畢業生陷入艱難的討價還價，其中一些人被迫接受低薪工作，甚至靠父母的養老金維持生計，這種困境催生了一個新的「爛尾娃」。

這句話今年已成為社群媒體流行語，與自 2021 年以來困擾中國經濟的數千萬未完工房屋的流行語「爛尾樓」類似。

今年，在因 COVID-19 引發的幹擾以及對該國金融、科技和教育行業的監管打壓而低迷的勞動力市場中尋找工作的大學畢業生數量創下了歷史新高。

去年4月，約1億中國16-24歲青年的失業率首次攀升至20%以上。當 2023 年 6 月觸及 21.3% 的歷史新高時，官員們突然暫停了該數據系列，以重新評估數據的編制方式。

一年過去了，青年失業率仍然是一個令人頭痛的問題，今年夏天有1,179 萬名大學生畢業，而經濟仍然受到房地產危機的拖累，7 月重新配置的失業率飆升至2024 年的高點17.1 %。

習近平主席多次強調，青年就業仍是首要任務。政府呼籲為年輕人提供更多管道接觸潛在雇主，例如招聘會，並推出支持性商業政策以幫助促進就業。

Michigan大學社會學助理教授Yun Zhou表示：「對許多中國大學畢業生來說，更好的就業前景、向上的社會流動性、更陽光的生活觀 - 所有曾經由大學學位所承諾的一切 - 現在變得越來越難以實現。

一些失業的年輕人回到家鄉當“全職子女”，靠父母的退休金和積蓄生活。

即使是那些擁有研究生學位的人也未能倖免。

在花了數年時間攀登中國競爭異常激烈的學術階梯後，「爛尾娃」發現，他們的學歷無法在經濟不景氣的情況下為他們找到工作。

他們的選擇是有限的。他們要么降低對高薪工作的期望，要么找到任何工作來維持生計。有些人還轉向犯罪。

Zephyr Cao去年從著名的北京外交學院獲得碩士學位。

現年 27 歲的Cao回到家鄉河北省後，由於低於預期的工資讓他質疑自己的教育價值，因此不再尋找全職工作。

Cao說: 「如果我本科畢業後工作三、四年，我的薪水可能和我現在讀碩士的薪水差不多」。

Cao說，他正在考慮攻讀博士學位，希望幾年後他的前景會有所改善。

（待續）