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SCMP:How to solve a problem like China’s jobless, ‘lying flat’ youth

Hamartia Antidote

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  • In a tough job climate, some young Chinese are ‘lying flat’, ‘letting it rot’ or considering leaving the country
  • Recent regulatory clampdowns on sectors like tutoring have not helped job prospects. To solve the problem, the government should listen to young people

Although China’s economy seems to be recovering – driven perhaps more by consumption than production – its youth unemployment approached 20 per cent in March. And with a record 11.6 million students graduating from higher education in the coming months, youth employment may well exceed 20 per cent soon.
In this context, the Chinese government has made job creation a top priority – pulling levers by encouraging state-owned enterprises to hire more younger workers and offering subsidies to employers. Graduates are increasingly seeking the security of public-sector jobs. Many are also applying to graduate schools to avoid the intense competition in the job market.

Against this backdrop, some young Chinese have been in the grip of social phenomena beginning with “lying flat”: why swim futilely against the current when one can do as little as possible? And while “lying flat” – tang ping in Mandarin – has more neutral connotations of Taoist retreat, the more recent emergence of “letting it rot”bai lan – indicates a deeper disillusionment.

Although not all of these rebels would have got high-pressure jobs demanding 996 weeks (9am to 9pm six days a week) in the first place, some young Chinese have left prestigious jobs for manual labour. Such career switches may offer temporary relief from the rat race and the Marxist sense of alienation that afflicts workers under capitalism, but not a permanent escape from life’s burdens, though.


The truly despondent might take another way out. Recently, four young people died in an apparent suicide pact, after three of them fell from Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie; the fourth took poison. Then there is the trend known as “run philosophy”, as the wealthy and talented consider leaving the mainland for Hong Kong or Singapore.

All these may be seen as different exit routes. Not long ago, China’s youth were among the most hopeful in the world. What happened?

While the “lying flat” movement might have gained prominence during the pandemic, there are deeper structural reasons for it. Chief among them is perhaps the perception of diminishing economic opportunities in an ultra-competitive environment. While education once provided a way to climb the economic ladder, social mobility has declined in recent decades. As China’s economy matured, the prospects of young Chinese born into affluent families in major cities have become far better than those of their less-fortunate peers.

Such trends have provided the impetus for Beijing’s promotion of common prosperity, but this cannot be achieved without structural adjustments sending shock waves through the economy. Therefore, before social benefits can be realised in the longer term, an immediate adverse impact on employment might aggravate the hopelessness among youth. Herein lies the intractable tension between fostering economic opportunities and reducing economic inequalities.

Regulatory clampdowns over a year ago on the tech, education and property sectors resulted in the disappearance of millions of jobs. The irony is that some of those moves were, in part, meant to reduce inequalities. The crackdown on the real estate sector was intended to address the housing affordability problem that is a key cause of social inequality.

The crackdown on private tutoring was an attempt to reduce educational inequality, relieve the financial pressure on middle-class families and release disposable income. Yet, China remains one of the most expensive countries to raise a child, with the current cost 6.9 times gross domestic product per capita, a figure second only to South Korea’s; in both countries, family spending on private tutoring is notoriously high.

Youth unemployment is caused by a lack of job opportunities and a mismatch between skills and job requirements. The government’s clampdowns not only eliminated jobs but aggravated the skills mismatch because many employees with general skills who were employed in the property or education sectors have been unable to find good jobs in other sectors.

On the other hand, the government’s repositioning towards hard tech, including semiconductors, created new jobs that require highly specialised skills. The result is a labour surplus and a labour shortage at the same time.

Advanced manufacturing requires highly skilled technical workers. In the longer term, there may also be an imbalance between general university graduates and vocationally trained technicians. Going forward, rebalancing China’s higher and vocational education would be an important part of the solution. Further reforms to hukou, the household registration system, would equalise social benefits and improve labour mobility.

Unemployed graduates’s best hope lies in job creation. Private enterprises have long provided most of the urban employment but many, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, were decimated in the pandemic due to lockdowns. Restoring confidence among private enterprises, including foreign investors, will be critical to sustained job creation.

Unemployed youth’s unmet expectations are a recipe for social instability. Promoting alternative pathways to good and stable urban jobs could be a way forward. But the failure of such alternatives would only deepen young people’s disappointment. Meanwhile, young Chinese don’t need pontifications about how they should manage their expectations. “Lying flat” is a form of self-regulation in the face of seemingly impossible odds.

The government has rightly focused on job creation, but the task may ultimately fall to private enterprises in the main.

Party cadres are being told to focus on investigative research, in the tradition of the party. Among the most important research initiatives would be running focus groups with unemployed young people and graduating students, as well as private-sector employers.

Realistic solutions to youth unemployment must start with a solid grasp of the problems on both the demand and supply sides. To mitigate young people’s malaise, their voices must be heard.
 
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A line in this song says it all, “I don’t want to perish in failure and loneliness.”

IMHO, Young people need a new social contract; short enough time in education to get into a decent enough job to be able to afford a decent apartment or house and be able to form a family unit enough enough to have at least two kids. Good for young people and China’s demographics, economy, political stability.

This isn’t restricted to just China, but globally universal. Can’t escape the fundamentals of what makes most people happy.


Btw, here is the the full song. Artists have always been the mirror held up to society, saying difficult things that need to be heard.


In the US, we have this sentiment as well, but our society still offers more opportunity to young people. It’s hard but still possible in the west.

 
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1. Reduce work hours and crack down on 996.
- Make 4 days work week or 35 hour 5 days work week standard. People burnt out and exhausted from work are not going to want to shag. It is also better for companies because productivity drops significantly after 7 hours at work.

2. Reduce wealth inequality.
- Make laws limiting executive pay to no more than 10 times that of the average worker for publicly traded companies. Lack of social mobility kills work motivation.

3. Reduce commercialized housing and push for national public housing.
- Local governments are dependent on land sales and high real estate prices to sustain their budget, while consumers have their purchase power eroded by sky high property prices. People should have accessible and affordable housing, while local government should be getting their revenues from property taxes instead of land sales.

3. Reduce emphasis on university degrees and increase focus on vocational education.
- Currently there are nearly 12 million university graduates per year which 20% are un/underemployed. At the same time there are 20 million technical skilled jobs in China unfilled at this very moment. There is a mismatch between the labor market and education system.

4. Subsidize egg freezing for young working women and fertility procedures for couples.
- Women should not be punished for pursing a career in her early life. She should have the option to have children at any given time. Couples with difficulty conceiving should receive state funded procedure to help them have children.

Right now the government is not willing to do any of these things. How can you expect people to change if the policies that led to this mess aren't changing?
 
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  • In a tough job climate, some young Chinese are ‘lying flat’, ‘letting it rot’ or considering leaving the country
  • Recent regulatory clampdowns on sectors like tutoring have not helped job prospects. To solve the problem, the government should listen to young people

Although China’s economy seems to be recovering – driven perhaps more by consumption than production – its youth unemployment approached 20 per cent in March. And with a record 11.6 million students graduating from higher education in the coming months, youth employment may well exceed 20 per cent soon.
In this context, the Chinese government has made job creation a top priority – pulling levers by encouraging state-owned enterprises to hire more younger workers and offering subsidies to employers. Graduates are increasingly seeking the security of public-sector jobs. Many are also applying to graduate schools to avoid the intense competition in the job market.

Against this backdrop, some young Chinese have been in the grip of social phenomena beginning with “lying flat”: why swim futilely against the current when one can do as little as possible? And while “lying flat” – tang ping in Mandarin – has more neutral connotations of Taoist retreat, the more recent emergence of “letting it rot”bai lan – indicates a deeper disillusionment.

Although not all of these rebels would have got high-pressure jobs demanding 996 weeks (9am to 9pm six days a week) in the first place, some young Chinese have left prestigious jobs for manual labour. Such career switches may offer temporary relief from the rat race and the Marxist sense of alienation that afflicts workers under capitalism, but not a permanent escape from life’s burdens, though.


The truly despondent might take another way out. Recently, four young people died in an apparent suicide pact, after three of them fell from Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie; the fourth took poison. Then there is the trend known as “run philosophy”, as the wealthy and talented consider leaving the mainland for Hong Kong or Singapore.

All these may be seen as different exit routes. Not long ago, China’s youth were among the most hopeful in the world. What happened?

While the “lying flat” movement might have gained prominence during the pandemic, there are deeper structural reasons for it. Chief among them is perhaps the perception of diminishing economic opportunities in an ultra-competitive environment. While education once provided a way to climb the economic ladder, social mobility has declined in recent decades. As China’s economy matured, the prospects of young Chinese born into affluent families in major cities have become far better than those of their less-fortunate peers.

Such trends have provided the impetus for Beijing’s promotion of common prosperity, but this cannot be achieved without structural adjustments sending shock waves through the economy. Therefore, before social benefits can be realised in the longer term, an immediate adverse impact on employment might aggravate the hopelessness among youth. Herein lies the intractable tension between fostering economic opportunities and reducing economic inequalities.

Regulatory clampdowns over a year ago on the tech, education and property sectors resulted in the disappearance of millions of jobs. The irony is that some of those moves were, in part, meant to reduce inequalities. The crackdown on the real estate sector was intended to address the housing affordability problem that is a key cause of social inequality.

The crackdown on private tutoring was an attempt to reduce educational inequality, relieve the financial pressure on middle-class families and release disposable income. Yet, China remains one of the most expensive countries to raise a child, with the current cost 6.9 times gross domestic product per capita, a figure second only to South Korea’s; in both countries, family spending on private tutoring is notoriously high.

Youth unemployment is caused by a lack of job opportunities and a mismatch between skills and job requirements. The government’s clampdowns not only eliminated jobs but aggravated the skills mismatch because many employees with general skills who were employed in the property or education sectors have been unable to find good jobs in other sectors.

On the other hand, the government’s repositioning towards hard tech, including semiconductors, created new jobs that require highly specialised skills. The result is a labour surplus and a labour shortage at the same time.

Advanced manufacturing requires highly skilled technical workers. In the longer term, there may also be an imbalance between general university graduates and vocationally trained technicians. Going forward, rebalancing China’s higher and vocational education would be an important part of the solution. Further reforms to hukou, the household registration system, would equalise social benefits and improve labour mobility.

Unemployed graduates’s best hope lies in job creation. Private enterprises have long provided most of the urban employment but many, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, were decimated in the pandemic due to lockdowns. Restoring confidence among private enterprises, including foreign investors, will be critical to sustained job creation.

Unemployed youth’s unmet expectations are a recipe for social instability. Promoting alternative pathways to good and stable urban jobs could be a way forward. But the failure of such alternatives would only deepen young people’s disappointment. Meanwhile, young Chinese don’t need pontifications about how they should manage their expectations. “Lying flat” is a form of self-regulation in the face of seemingly impossible odds.

The government has rightly focused on job creation, but the task may ultimately fall to private enterprises in the main.

Party cadres are being told to focus on investigative research, in the tradition of the party. Among the most important research initiatives would be running focus groups with unemployed young people and graduating students, as well as private-sector employers.

Realistic solutions to youth unemployment must start with a solid grasp of the problems on both the demand and supply sides. To mitigate young people’s malaise, their voices must be heard.

The problem is the mismatch in desired and actual available job as college graduates does not want factory jobs nor any blue collar works.
 
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The problem is the mismatch in desired and actual available job as college graduates does not want factory jobs nor any blue collar works.

That's what happens when you suddenly have a high percentage of your population college educated. Nobody wants to do manual labor anymore.

In 1950 only 10% of the US high school population went to college.

But by 1970 it hit 50% and nobody wanted to work in a factory anymore. This sort of led to the computer revolution to target the influx of white-collar workers.

By 2015 it hit 70%
 
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That's what happens when you suddenly have a high percentage of your population college educated. Nobody wants to do manual labor anymore.
Second problem is Chinese culture always looked down on manual laborers and craftsmen. You could be a plumber making a killing but you still won't be seen as prestigious as a low paying secretary.
 
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Second problem is Chinese culture always looked down on manual laborers and craftsmen. You could be a plumber making a killing but you still won't be seen as prestigious as a low paying secretary.

Well China is the factory of the world so desperation must be overriding that taboo...otherwise West Asia would likely be that factory.
 
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Well China is the factory of the world so desperation must be an overriding that taboo...otherwise West Asia would today be that factory.
China had a steady supply of poor migrant workers from rural areas in the past 40 years. That supply has dried up as most people moved into cities. The new city dwellers do not want to work their parents' factory jobs, which is understandable given the conditions and low pay. White collar jobs traditionally paid more and had higher social prestige.
 
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China had a steady supply of poor migrant workers from rural areas in the past 40 years. That supply has dried up as most people moved into cities. The new city dwellers do not want to work their parents' factory jobs, which is understandable given the conditions and low pay. White collar jobs traditionally paid more and had higher social prestige.

Welcome to the developed world I guess.
 
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Welcome to the developed world I guess.
The problem is that blue collar jobs have seen a steady improvement in pay and working conditions, since factories are desperate for skilled technicians. Meanwhile, university graduates can't find jobs because there is an overabundance of supply vs demand.
 
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A very big reason for "lying flat" is -- the educational system using love and school work too stressful as pretext, tries make peasants lazy and stupid. China is still ok, and worse is west, Japan.
 
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When your parents money can easily provide you with a comfortable life with reasonable luxury, do you still like to find a job at all? The ‘’lying flat" generation is full of spoiled kids.
 
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Wait until no one want to do menial jobs and let wages rise. Upon then, the 快递小哥 food delivery, or even sht collector will become very prestigious.

In countries like Singapore, the treacherous elites mass import foreigners to prevent menial job wages from rising.
 
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