'No Job Is Better Than Low Paying Job,' Gen Z¡¯s New Trend In The US & China Shoots Up Unemployment

Want to know how America and China¡¯s Gen Z are really doing? Young adults in China are dealing with an extreme version of the same issue plaguing America¡¯s TikTok generation: finding a well-paying job that meets their expectations.

The quest for a stable and well-paying white-collar job has become something of a dull take on a mediaeval quest, involving a hiring process that takes months and multiple rounds of interviews only to result in multiple rejections. And now, Gen Z is locked into a battle to re-invent work, but the economy and companies don't seem to be ready for it.

Bigger Problem For Gen Z

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But a bigger problem than the job application process is the disconnect between what young people want and what their leaders are willing to give them. The result in China? A youth unemployment crisis of epic proportions, where one in five people between 16 and 24 years old is without work, according to the National Bureau of Statistics via Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal.

A lot of the problem has to do with the grunt work of blue-collar firms. Government officials in both countries are desperately pushing young employees to take on these jobs, only to find themselves in a similar bind; whether it¡¯s the stigma surrounding these jobs or the lack of change in salary or working conditions, Gen Z isn¡¯t looking at the offer all that keenly. The gripe for government officials, though, is that they depend on workers in these blue-collar roles to keep, you know, things like buildings from falling apart, produce or food on the table, and provide an increasingly consumer-driven culture with those shoes, goodies, or whatever TikTok says they need next, as per a Fortune report.

Gen Z has lived in a world where nearly everything says "Made in China." Now, some Chinese Gen Zers seem to be saying it¡¯s another country¡¯s turn to make stuff.

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What The Economic Data Says About Unemployment

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Taking a closer look at the economic data, unemployment rates skyrocketed to a record 20.4% for young adults in China, while they reportedly stand at 6.5% in America.

Even in March 2023, U.S. unemployment was at 3.5 percent, but it was much higher for youth, which had 5.5 percent among those 16 to 24 years old, as per Statista data.

Experts told the Journal that a growing number of China¡¯s Gen Z are leaving school and looking for high-paying and high-skill jobs, and the country simply doesn¡¯t have enough positions to meet the demand. It leaves these young adults looking for jobs that simply aren¡¯t coming, while some lower their job or salary expectations, still to be met with fierce competition.

The Quiet Quitting & 996 Schedule

The old schedule in China¡¯s tech sector used to be known as 996, or working from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. six days a week. But in 2021, workers won a case that declared employees demanding such intense labour to be illegal. The pendulum has swung the other way a bit, as "lying flat" gained traction as a term and practise in China, where employees put in just the work needed to get the job done, nothing more or less, and certainly no 996.

Something similar happened across the globe as young employees in the U.S. acted their wage or quietly quit. Both countries have experienced widely reported burnout over the past couple of years; in China, it gained another phrase¡ªinvolution¡ªas many young workers reported disengaging from hustle culture.

"I think of lying flat as a silent rebellion against a culture of overpressure," Zak Dychtwald, CEO of consultancy Young China Group, told Fortune. Chinese and American Gen Zers are both trying to re-invent work, emphasising the importance of work-life balance and good pay, but the job market and economy aren¡¯t meeting their needs.

Projected to be the most educated generation, Gen Z is leaving school only to meet an economy that doesn¡¯t always have the jobs they expected and a government seeking to fill service and manufacturing roles. Facing the heat, Chinese officials have tried to encourage companies to hire more graduates, incentivize workers to take said jobs with ads about stable and meaningful service jobs, and send a hopeful message to new grads: lower your expectations.

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Getting A Job With 'Lower' Expectations

As per the report, back in the states, the youth aren¡¯t faring all that much better. The government wants the same thing for Christmas¡ªmore blue-collar workers, as the country¡¯s ageing workforce has many older workers in the sector retiring. To make matters more difficult, there¡¯s already a shortage in the industry.

Over the past couple of years, jobs that require being in person and that don¡¯t offer high wages have had a harder time keeping employees, according to the Chamber of Commerce. That is to say, without good pay, many young and old simply quit to look for something that will keep them afloat amid high inflation.

US President Biden¡¯s platform was in part that he was an average Joe coming from middle-class roots and elected to help middle-class workers. Part of his promised plan was to bolster blue-collar work, something that he¡¯s recently found some gains in despite pervasive difficulty in hiring for said growing jobs. "Jobs are coming back; pride is coming back because of the choices we made in the last two years. This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America and make a real difference in your lives," Biden asserted in February¡¯s State of the Union.

Why Gen Z Is Desiring Good Pay

Graduating from degrees that come with a high price tag only to deal with immense student debt and economic volatility adds to Gen Z¡¯s desire for good pay in America. Applications for full-time technical jobs decreased by 47% from 10 applicants per job before the pandemic to 5.3 applications today, according to data from student job platform Handshake provided to Fortune. But with Biden on the job to create a blue-collar boom, the cup runneth over when it comes to positions being offered, standing at over 45,000 technical job listings, according to Handshake. That¡¯s a 7% increase in technical jobs during the past year compared to 2021 to 2022, as per the report.

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While there might be a reason to shun jobs that aren¡¯t paying enough for the labour put in, blue-collar jobs are shifting a bit, and the nature of white-collar jobs in the U.S. is changing a whole lot. Blue-collar jobs can provide stable and sufficient wages at times; data from the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics shows the median salary for carpenters was almost $50,000 and well into the $70,000s for farmers. It¡¯s in part an option that hasn¡¯t been encouraged as of late, as the pipeline in both China and America is to go to school, then more school, and then get a job (that I never could find, per the silhouettes). The assumptions regarding blue-collar work are baked into this country that depends on said labour, and it¡¯s a mess that needs untangling.

And these days, the jobs that young graduates are so desperately seeking are going through rounds of layoffs after a technology boom and effectively disappearing. These jobs were valued increasingly for their flexibility and good pay, something that doesn¡¯t ring as true now as companies usher people back in and entry-level jobs don¡¯t offer wages that compete with the cost of living.

What¡¯s more, the sector is going through volatility when it comes to AI (artificial intelligence). While manufacturing has been affected by AI already, there¡¯s some safety there. "Trade/skilled jobs have the potential of being relatively safe from the advancements made in A.I.," a spokesperson explained, citing the Microsoft CTO¡¯s comments on how jobs like engineering will always be essential. Blue-collar work has become more attractive as it provides a less volatile alternative that offers increasingly good pay and has experienced higher wage gains than white-collar work in a post-pandemic market (to be fair, likely starting off at a lower salary).

In the end, as per the report, it appears as if difficult finances and a white-collar recession have young adults in the U.S. grabbing the manufacturing carrot that the government is dangling in front of them faster than their peers in China.

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