A graduate from a “985” top university breaks down in tears, saying she can’t find a job. (Video screenshot)
[People News] In recent years, China’s youth unemployment rate has drawn growing attention. Despite the CCP’s superficial rollout of policies, the public has seen no tangible results. On Chinese social media, countless videos show college graduates crying over their inability to find work. Many are graduates of elite universities like Tsinghua and Peking University, yet they struggle even to secure a stable waitressing job — let alone employment in their chosen fields. Increasingly, young people are asking: Is going to college still worth it today?
According to official CCP data, in August, the national urban unemployment rate for 16–24-year-olds not currently in school rose from 17.8% in July to 18.9%, the highest level in 20 months since the statistical method was changed. From April to June 2023, China’s youth unemployment rate exceeded 20% for three consecutive months, peaking at a historic 21.3% in June. The CCP then abruptly suspended the public release of youth unemployment figures.
Fu Linghui, spokesperson for China’s National Bureau of Statistics, claimed that seasonal fluctuations occur every July and August during graduation season, and that the rate would “gradually decline as graduates find jobs.”
But China’s rising youth unemployment reflects not a temporary fluctuation, but a worsening crisis. This year, the number of college graduates is expected to reach 12.22 million, an increase of 430,000 over last year — underscoring enormous labour market pressure. The “job-hunting difficulties” faced by young graduates have become one of the country’s top two social challenges.
In recent years, stories abound of graduates from China’s top universities working in restaurants, setting up street stalls, or delivering food. A new euphemism, “full-time children” (quanzhi ernü), has emerged to mask the unemployment crisis — referring to jobless youth who “accompany their parents full-time.” Meanwhile, universities like the Communication University of China have promoted the notion of “flexible employment” to artificially beautify statistics.
On Chinese social media, many young people post videos describing their desperate job searches:
A female vlogger cried, “Family, it’s really impossible to find a job. I studied so hard at a 985 university, but I can’t find anything. My mom sold snacks at a street stall to put me through school, and now I’ve graduated only to sell ice cream at a stall myself. I feel so bitter.” “Since I got my diploma and came to Hangzhou to find a job, more than a month has passed — still nothing. I might actually end up sleeping on the streets.” “Is it even worth going to college anymore? After more than ten years of hard study, spending bags of money and buying bags of books, I graduated and couldn’t find any work.” “I’m a 2025 graduate. Today is my tenth day in Shenzhen. I can’t find a job — nothing, except telemarketing, all kinds of sales, customer service, and so-called media livestreaming jobs. That’s it.” “Finding work is just too hard. Even my Peking University classmates graduate only to be unemployed.”
One anonymous 2023 graduate told the BBC: “In the past, people relied on campus recruitment. When I graduated without a job, my counsellor told me to open a Douyin account. Then, on my ‘graduate destination’ form, they wrote ‘flexible employment.’ Just having a Douyin account meant I was considered employed — even if I had no salary. In two years, I’ve switched jobs twice, neither of which was satisfactory. So I’ve basically been unemployed all along.”
A Tsinghua graduate said, “Forget about 985s. Even plenty of Tsinghua graduates around me say they can’t find work.”
The crisis extends beyond undergraduates. Even PhD graduates from elite schools are not spared. A recent video by “Natural Juanjuan,” a 30-year-old humanities PhD from Zhejiang University, went viral as she described her own joblessness: “I have no job at all now. I really want to ask — who keeps saying that graduates of 985 schools can easily find work?”
One medical school graduate said online that she could not find work and had to resort to running a street stall: “If I hadn’t gone to college for four years, I would have saved over 100,000 yuan. If I had just worked with my mom selling things at a stall, I might be thriving by now.” But because her video went viral, her school pressured her to delete it. Teachers even had her record a public apology video, in which she said: “I’m just a special case. I was simple-minded, and the video spread too widely, creating a negative impact. As an alumna, I should reflect on myself.”
A medical graduate said she had to survive by running a street stall after failing to find work. Because her video gained too much traction, her school forced her to delete it. (Video screenshot)
Despite the ongoing crisis of “graduating into unemployment,” the CCP authorities have introduced policies that have proved useless. In a throwback to the late Cultural Revolution’s “Down to the Countryside” campaign, Xi Jinping has called on young people to “seek jobs and development opportunities in rural areas.” Xi emphasised the need to “bring in talent to the countryside, guide graduates to return, encourage migrant workers to come back, and attract entrepreneurs to invest, so that they can stay, settle, and start businesses.”
But the vast rural-urban divide has been a structural problem since the founding of the PRC. Rural areas lack industry, have backward commerce, and suffer from serious shortages of education, healthcare, and elderly care resources. Even local youth flock to cities for work. Villages simply cannot provide meaningful jobs for college graduates. Thus, encouraging youth to “go to the countryside” is seen as an empty slogan, effectively sending them to “eat bitterness.”
Experts argue that Xi Jinping’s proposal reflects a Mao-era mentality of mobilising people with “selfless dedication,” but without addressing the roots of the problem. This exposes the CCP — and Xi himself — as skilled in power struggles but incompetent in governance. △
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