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by spywaregorilla 758 days ago
> there's a societal trend to not hire people over the age of 30-35 in China

> there's an unofficial 70% youth unemployment rate

> , due to the recent 50% reduction in wages

I couldn't find anything on these points. The second one seems completely unbelievable while also being at odds with the first claim.

What are you referring to?

3 comments

The last official youth employment hit over 20% before China stopped publishing the figure.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-stop-releasing-you...

Basically there is a trend of overeducation; China is producing millions more university graduates than it needs, without enough white collar jobs, and at the same time there are a lot of job openings in much more poorly paid factory work. This is not unique in East Asia, South Korea also has a lot of youth unemployment for similar reasons. https://keia.org/the-peninsula/low-youth-employment-in-korea...

Also, China is currently suffering from deflation because it produces many more goods than it can consume or export, and wages are also being cut.

It's typically on Chinese social media apps, and when they get popular they get taken down immediately by the government

here are some remnants in non-chinese websites.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2023-06/26/c_1129716071.htm

https://botanwang.com/articles/202308/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%...

https://www.voachinese.com/a/more-chinese-white-collar-worke...

if you want to verify secondary effects: Retail sales of passenger cars in China declined to 1.095 million units, down 21% from a year earlier and 46% from January. https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/chinas-vehicle-sales-drop.... A decline of real estate development investment widened to 9.5% in the first quarter from 9% in the first two months https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-16/china-hom... Stingy Chinese shoppers are returning their goods, erasing up to 75% of their sales value.https://fortune.com/asia/2024/04/17/luxury-brands-new-headac...

Popping the residential real estate investment bubble was probably the root cause behind the collapse in sales of cars, luxury goods, and other consumer products. A lot of consumers who had made highly leveraged investments on unoccupied apartments in "ghost cities" were sitting on significant paper wealth for a few years and felt comfortable spending money. Now that has largely evaporated.
Last time I tracked this closely: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL4N3960Z5/