Millions Of Chinese Are Jobless In Xi's Great Leap Backward

China, often dubbed “the world’s factory,” accounts for around 30 percent of global manufacturing output. However, there is one commodity China cannot produce fast enough-- jobs for its millions of newly minted college graduates—Craig Singleton, a senior China fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, wrote for Foreign Policy.

Photo Insert: Put plainly, China risks falling off the employment cliff.

Amid China’s worsening economic crisis, nearly 20% of those between the ages of 16 and 24 are now unemployed and millions more are underemployed. One survey found that of the 11 million Chinese students who graduated from college this summer, fewer than 15 percent had secured job offers by mid-April.

Even as many US and European workers are seeing their salaries surge, this year’s Chinese graduates can expect to earn 12 percent less than the class of 2021. Many will make less than truck drivers—if they are lucky enough to find a job at all.

Put plainly, China risks falling off the employment cliff. And China’s leaders know it—even if their proposed policy prescriptions, such as sending urban students to work in the countryside, harken back to a bygone era.

The problem for today’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is that yesteryear’s bag of tricks will only get it so far, regardless of how hastily Chinese leader Xi Jinping backtracks on the policies.

Moreover, more than 30% of foreign companies operating in China polled recently said they are cutting back on hiring and up to 35% of Japanese firms are considering moving back to Japan or to some Southeast Asian countries.

Many expatriates are also leaving because of government meddling with corporate affairs and the zero-COVID policy that had forced factories to be locked down, the American Chamber of Commerce in China found out.

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