'Rotten-tail kids': China's rising youth unemployment breeds new working class

MicroWave@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 222 points – 'Rotten-tail kids': China's rising youth unemployment breeds new working class
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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.

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Any tankies wanna take a spin on how this is actually a good thing?

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.

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

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

Found you. Copy and paste this back to me:

Tiananmen Square Massacre really happened

I'm stealing this Idea :P

It’s free!! Tell your friends. Shake off a hexbear or an ML with words they can’t say back to you!

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

Say it. Wimp.

Why? Like what do you think I stand to gain from posting something because you told me to? Lol

You know exactly why I want you to say it.

Okay so am I right to assume you’re just looking for a reason to justify your dismissive smug attitude? Because that’s genuinely what I think you’re doing.

That is the pot calling the kettle black. ;)

I just don’t believe you can type it. Any excuse not to answer the question, that was part of the original joke! Pretty spot on so far.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

There you go!

Do people seriously think that?

I was starting to wonder. Maybe it's confirmation bias, but in my experience you folks don't tend to shy away when flamed.

I’ll only jumps through hoops for you CanadaPlus 😉

in my experience you folks don’t tend to shy away when flamed.

Well I think like most people online MLs aren’t above posting snarky replies or acting dismissive especially when confronted by the same attitudes. Most know that countering disinformation or trying to organize for their political aims online is generally a waste of time.

Probably the phrase is monitored by their government, and will land them in jail.

How do you think that would even work? Do you have any clue how absurd that sounds? It’s like John Birch Society level paranoia.

😏

🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Workers rights activists are leftist activists by virtue of advocating for workers rights, IMO.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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Ahhh, there he is.

Please write :

Tiananmen Square Massacre really happened

:)

Want to tell me why the world bank is wrong or should I start putting words in your mouth too?

Upvoting. They may not like the answer but this is what they asked for.

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I am in my mid-thirties with a very good MSc and I am working as a labourer, I am not Chinese.

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.

I'm in the UK, not a bad idea though!

I try not to be 'that American' who thinks everything works the same all around the globe.

Good luck

hopefully they don't use the historic solution of cannon fodder.

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.