{"id":140367,"date":"2025-08-12T18:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T18:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/140367\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T18:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T18:47:09","slug":"chinas-gen-z-unemployment-is-so-bad-that-young-job-seekers-are-paying-to-pretend-to-work-in-an-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/140367\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s Gen Z unemployment is so bad that young job-seekers are paying to pretend to work in an office"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gen Z graduates are stepping out of college with prestigious degrees<\/a>, only to be met with a sluggish job market<\/a>, making it feel nearly impossible to land a gig. The situation has gotten so bad in China<\/a> that young professionals are even paying to work in a mock office to pass the time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Young adults in China are paying between 30 and 50 yuan per day, or around $4.20 to $7, to sit in fake office setups across the country run by Pretend to Work Company. While the cost might not sound like much for U.S. readers, the nation\u2019s average non-private sector annual salary is just shy of $16,000<\/a>\u2014so the $1,820 annual price to pretend-work Monday through Friday adds up. These spaces are hotspots for China\u2019s jobless Gen Z to work on their own startups, apply to open roles, or simply sit around in the company of other struggling youth looking for an opportunity. The mock offices often provide computers for use, as well as free snacks, lunch, and drinks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These faux working locations are popping up in major cities including Shenzhen, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chengdu, and Kunming, according to reporting<\/a> from the BBC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With China\u2019s youth unemployment being sky-high at 14.5%<\/a> for 16- to 24-year-olds, there are plenty of jobless professionals to commiserate with at these \u201cpretend to work<\/a>\u201d locations. It may seem counterproductive for unemployed people to be spending their money feigning work at an office\u2014but the spaces may be better at stimulating a new opportunity than job-seekers being isolated in their apartments, according to experts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe phenomenon of pretending to work is now very common,\u201d Christian Yao, senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington\u2019s School of Management in New Zealand, told the BBC<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to economic transformation and the mismatch between education and the job market, young people need these places to think about their next steps, or to do odd jobs as a transition\u2026Pretend office companies are one of the transitional solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s Gen Z joblessness crisis: \u2018Rat people\u2019 and \u2018lying flat\u2019<\/p>\n

China\u2019s Gen Z professionals have had a hard time scoring jobs for years<\/a>\u2014and the pandemic only turbocharged the need for new opportunities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2023 the situation was so dire that China\u2019s youth unemployment rate was estimated to be as high as 46.5%, according to<\/a> Peking University professor of economics Zhang Dandan. After three months of record-high young joblessness that year, the Chinese government ceased running statistics<\/a> on the issue altogether. The eye-popping unemployment rate included 16 million young Chinese workers who have taken themselves out of the labor force by \u201clying flat\u201d<\/a>\u2014doing the bare minimum to get by, and not chasing high-powered careers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

China\u2019s government is also stepping in to change worrying youth joblessness rates; in 2011, the Ministry of Education cautioned that<\/a> any college majors with employment under 60% for two years straight could be scrapped. To ensure their disciplines don\u2019t get shut down, some universities in China asked graduates to falsify their<\/a> job status to keep the programs running.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the actual state of youth unemployment in China could be worse than the data suggests, as colleges have incentives to inflate the employment rate,\u201d Henry Gao, a law professor at Singapore Management University, told the<\/a> South China Morning Post in 2023. \u201cThere have been reports of colleges offering jobs to their own graduates just to paper over the data.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there are indications the unemployment rates are improving, being a jobless professional is so commonplace in China that young people are proudly wearing their unemployment as a badge of honor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead of \u201cgirl bossing<\/a>,\u201d out-of-work Gen Zers are calling themselves \u201crat people<\/a>,\u201d spending their days bed rotting, scrolling on their phones, napping, and ordering takeout. It\u2019s a social media trend that has swept Weibo<\/a>, RedNote<\/a>, and Douyin<\/a>, as burned-out youth are exhausted by scant opportunities and crushed by hopelessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis trend is more than Gen Z disengaging, it\u2019s a quiet protest by young people responding to burnout, disillusionment, and a job market that feels both punishing and uninviting,\u201d Advita Patel, a confidence and career coach, and president of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, told Fortune<\/a>. \u201cWhen you\u2019re endlessly applying for jobs and being ghosted or rejected, it can be incredibly damaging to confidence and mental well-being.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Calling unemployed Gen Zers: Are you spending money for special services or fake office setups in your quest to land work? We\u2019d love to hear your experience\u2014please reach out at emma.burleigh@fortune.com<\/p>\n

Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500<\/strong>, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world. Explore this year’s list.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gen Z graduates are stepping out of college with prestigious degrees, only to be met with a sluggish…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":140368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[3774,9710,10360,64,16778,74,16720,45165,79,1189,3991,605,23990,420,1812,6043,345,50124,766,67,132,68,60274,22171,44170,44171],"class_list":{"0":"post-140367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-asia","9":"tag-beijing","10":"tag-burnout","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-careers","13":"tag-china","14":"tag-colleges-and-universities","15":"tag-coworking","16":"tag-economy","17":"tag-emotions","18":"tag-gen-z","19":"tag-job-hunting","20":"tag-job-seekers","21":"tag-jobs","22":"tag-office","23":"tag-shanghai","24":"tag-social-media","25":"tag-social-media-networks","26":"tag-unemployment","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-weibo","31":"tag-workers","32":"tag-young-adults","33":"tag-young-workers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115017288510466481","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}