BEIJING: A rising level of “rotten-tail boys” is a situation that has created a new working group of “rotten-tail kids” by forcing millions of university graduates to accept low-paying jobs or even rely on their parents ‘ pensions.
The term has become a popular social media term this month, drawing comparisons to the term “rotten-tail houses” for the tens of millions of empty houses that have plagued China’s market since 2021.
In a labor market depressed by COVID-19-induced problems as well as regulatory crackdowns on the nation’s financing, software, and training sectors, there are record numbers of university graduates this year looking for work.
For the first time in April of last year, the jobless rate for the roughly 100 million Chinese youth aged 16 to 24 increased above 20 %. Authorities abruptly suspended the data collection after it reached an all-time deep of 21.3 % in June 2023 and reassessed how numbers were compiled.
One year later, youth unemployment continues to be a problem, with the reconfigured jobless rate rising to a 2024 high of 17.1 % in July as a result of the nation’s economy still beweighed down by its rea