In China, young people leave prestigious jobs for manual labor

With the usual measures, Loretta Liu had done it.

A 2018 graduate of a top Chinese university, she rented an apartment in the charming city of Shenzhen and was hired as a visual designer at a number of high-profile companies, even as youth unemployment in China was reaching an all-time high.

She left last year.

now it works like hair salon in a chain of pet shops, for a fifth of his previous salary.

He spends hours on his feet, wearing a uniform instead of his previously carefully chosen clothes.

and it’s Pleased to meet you.

“I was tired of living this way. I didn’t feel like I got anything out of the job,” Liu explains of her previous work, in which she says she had little creative freedom, often worked overtime, and felt mental and physical health it got worse.

“So I thought: There’s no need anymore.”

Liu is part of a phenomenon that is attracting increasing attention in China:

young people swapping high-pressure and prestigious white-collar jobs for blue-collar jobs.

The extent of this trend is hard to measure, but posts have spread across social media documenting a tech employee turned grocery store cashier, an accountant selling hot dogs on the street, or a content manager delivering food at home.

On Xiaohongshu, an app similar to Instagram, the hashtag “My first experience with ephysical work” has more than 28 million views.

Its supporters describe the joy of having predictable times and a less competitive environment.

They acknowledge that change requires sacrifices — Liu says she saved up about $15,000 before she left and slashed her spending — but they say the spiritual drain of their previous jobs is worth escaping.

Liu says he prefers the physical exhaustion of fighting uncooperative dogs to the mental strain of poring over projects he didn’t choose.

Many also say they are looking for light, physical, non-intensive jobs such as construction or factories.

All over the world, the coronavirus pandemic has caused people to rethink the value of their work:

see the “Great Resignation” in the United States.

But in China, the forces fueling youthful disillusionment are particularly strong.

THE long working hoursthough bossy bosses are common.

The economy is slowing, dimming prospects for advancement for a generation that has known nothing but explosive growth.

And then there are three years of “zero COVID” restrictions in China, forcing many to endure extended lockouts, layoffs and the making of the little control that their hard work has given them for their future.

“Emotionally, everyone probably can’t take it anymore, because we’ve seen a lot of unfair and weird things during the pandemic, like being locked up,” Liu said.

The trend to switch jobs has reignited the debate over the futility of the rat race.

Two years ago, a similar call to quit your job and enjoy life, called “to lay down“, spread widely on the Internet.

Critics have accused his followers of squandering their parents’ investments and abandoning the industriousness that helped make China a superpower.

But others attributed their disenchantment to a value system that had prioritized a path of consumption towards success.

Since then, competition for white-collar jobs has been increasingly fierce.

A record number of students are expected to graduate from universities this year, even as companies have cut back on hiring.

The unemployment rate among people aged 16 to 24 was almost winds% last summer, according to official statistics, it was higher among university graduates.

So rather than pushing even harder to compete, some find the traditionally less coveted path attractive.

“The purpose of studying and accumulating knowledge is not to get an impressive job, but to have the courage to accept more possibilities,” reads the description of an online forum, which invited its more than 39,000 members to ask how tiring it is to set on a road position or to describe your experience waiting for tables.

When 25-year-old Eunice Wang was offered a consulting job in Beijing last year after completing her master’s degree, she immediately accepted.

She was proud that she stood out from so much competition and wanted to see how far she could go.

But Chinese corporate culture is notoriously demanding, and the death of employees in internet companies raises questions about overwork and mental health.

According to Wang, he soon fell into a vicious circle:

Overwork made her anxious, but she was too busy to relax.

He also hadn’t seen his parents in almost a year due to travel restrictions due to COVID.

She left him last fall.

Now he works in a cafe in his hometown of Shenyang in northeast China and earns money a fifth part of your previous salary.

She lives with her parents and earns extra money as a freelance illustrator, a hobby she had given up in Beijing.

Wang, who describes his family as affluent middle class, acknowledges he is lucky to be able to afford this choice.

She would go back to working as a clerk if her parents ever needed financial help, she said.

But until then, he relished the opportunity to do soand challenge their successful ideas.

“Everyone thought winning a project or getting a client was a great thing, and I wanted to force myself into believing the same thing,” she says of her old job.

But she has found that she finds enough gratification in befriending a customer or receiving compliments on a well-made latte.

“I don’t need other people to tell me what the future holds for me.”

Those who have made the switch are likely to remain a small minority.

Many who have posted on online forums are asking questions rather than posting.

Some of those who have left their most lucrative jobs admit they don’t know how long they will stay in their new occupations; some say they spend more than they earn.

Online critics have dismissed job-changers as naïve, suggesting that they are play poverty or take manual jobs away from people with less training who need them.

But there have also been criticisms in the opposite direction:

Recently, China’s state broadcaster partially blamed the unemployment problem on educated Chinese youth who are too reluctant to take blue-collar jobs, suggesting they are spoiled.

Social media users responded furiously, pointing out that society has long valued education above all else and, especially since China’s economic reform began, has seen manual labor as something to get rid of.

The problem wasn’t that young people thought they were too good for the job, but that it offered no real chance for a better life, due to lower wages and persistent discrimination, said Nie Riming, a researcher at the Institute of Finance and Law .from Shanghai.

Until China offers better-paying jobs and gives them more respect, young people will be pragmatic, not demanding.

“If society isn’t diverse, it’s impossible to expect students to make different decisions,” he said.

Some of the young Chinese who praise their new, less prestigious jobs hadn’t initially planned to take them.

When Yolanda Jiang, 24, quit her architectural design job in Shenzhen last summer after being asked to work 30 consecutive days, she hoped to find another desk job.

Only after three months of fruitless searches, with her savings dwindling, did she take a job as a Security Guard in a university residential complex.

At first he was embarrassed to tell his family or friends, but he has come to appreciate the work.

His 12-hour shifts, while long, were uneventful.

He left work on time.

The job involved free accommodation in a residence.

His salary, about $870 a month, was as low as the top 20%. to what I perceived before, a symptom of how the excess of graduates has begun to reduce the salaries of that bracket.

But Jiang said his ultimate goal remains to return to an office, where he hopes to find more intellectual challenges.

He had taken advantage of the slow pace of his security job to study English, which he hoped would help him find his next job, perhaps with a foreign trade company.

“Actually, I’m not lying down,” Jiang says.

“I’m treating it as a time to rest, transition, learn, recharge, and think about the direction of my life.”

c.2023 The New York Times Society