Chinese Economics Thread

[KYli]

Right, because foreign propaganda that most Chinese don't have access to and can't read anyways is what's going to break their morale and confidence in the system, not the reality they live in currently of bleak job prospects, which leads to a hesitancy to spend and invest.

Western propaganda is rampant within China and Chinese social media. Even many liberal leaning Chinese media also influences by Western talking points. For the last few months, MSM and its echo chamber in China have stepped up using youth unemployment to attack China and instill hate and despair within China. Chinese government just used the most effective way to stymie such propaganda war by taking away their weapon.

 

[paiemon]

They should be given as a form of voucher that can only be used for specific product categories (exl. houses, investments, wealth products, healthcare etc)

However that would then create a whole race for everyone involved to package house sales as "consumption" items that can also use the vouchers lol

The best driver for consumption would be for the government to put its money towards providing structural supports so people can generate their wealth and spend it accordingly instead of helicopter money which will only result in a spending race resulting in inflation or people pocketing the money. The government has put alot of money into physical infrastructure which has a been a key driver but I think more reforms and targeted investment towards "soft" infrastructure such as health care resources/allocation, education resources/allocation, housing affordability, retirement/long term savings would provide more opportunities for people to take advantage of different opportunities for spending or to generate wealth instead of narrowly concentrating resources in the rat race which is driven heavily by healthcare, education, housing and retirement. The goal is to have a diversified economy driven by consumption and fed by investment, too much consumption or investment will result in bubbles that end up destroying wealth and creating opportunity loss (i.e., real estate).

 

[FriedRiceNSpice]

Right, because foreign propaganda that most Chinese don't have access to and can't read anyways is what's going to break their morale and confidence in the system, not the reality they live in currently of bleak job prospects, which leads to a hesitancy to spend and invest.

The number of high-paying jobs, particular sought-after STEM jobs, is increasing at a fast pace. But unfortunately, there is never going to be enough of these jobs compared to the number of young people hoping for these jobs. There is no economic issue here, just societal / cultural issue. There is a tendency in Chinese / East Asian cultures to place overemphasized attachment on an individuals educational achievements and career choice as the defining measure of an individual's worth / value. South Korea and Japan faces the same issues, despite Japanese attitudes shifting gradually over time as Japan have had a longer amount of time to accept reality (nothing to do with Japanese economic stagnation - would likely have occurred regardless). I'm not advocating for Chinese to completely embrace American cultural attitudes towards education and work, but cultural attitudes should change in order to accommodate reality. Young people should be encouraged to maximize their potential and talent even if means looking outside of the traditionally most sought-after and prestigious jobs, and outside of the most desirable tier 1 cities. Regardless, most of the unemployed youth will come to terms with reality and move on to other jobs.

 

[Quan8410]

The number of high-paying jobs, particular sought-after STEM jobs, is increasing at a fast pace. But unfortunately, there is never going to be enough of these jobs compared to the number of young people hoping for these jobs. There is no economic issue here, just societal / cultural issue. There is a tendency in Chinese / East Asian cultures to place overemphasized attachment on an individuals educational achievements and career choice as the defining measure of an individual's worth / value. South Korea and Japan faces the same issues, despite Japanese attitudes shifting gradually over time as Japan have had a longer amount of time to accept reality (nothing to do with Japanese economic stagnation - would likely have occurred regardless). I'm not advocating for Chinese to completely embrace American cultural attitudes towards education and work, but cultural attitudes should change in order to accommodate reality. Young people should be encouraged to maximize their potential and talent even if means looking outside of the traditionally most sought-after and prestigious jobs, and outside of the most desirable tier 1 cities. Regardless, most of the unemployed youth will come to terms with reality and move on to other jobs.

America isn't too bad. They are indeed lazier than the East Asians but many time better than the European. At least America does not resist overtime, good luck try to get European to overtime. European is among the laziest peoples I ever worked with. They demand short hours, always leave in time not care if work done or not and always try to exploit other to do the work for them. No wonder why the whole Europe lags behind East Asia and America.

 

[FriedRiceNSpice]

America isn't too bad. They are indeed lazier than the East Asians but many time better than the European. At least America does not resists overtime. European is among the laziest peoples I ever worked with. They demand short hours and always try to exploit other to do the work for them. No wonder why the whole Europe lags behind East Asia and America.

I will probably get a lot of flak for saying this, but I think it would be beneficial for society, demographics and quality of life if Chinese working hours would converge more towards American working hours. Working 996 is pretty unsustainable for both individuals and society. In the US, you have decent paying jobs with standard 40-hour work weeks, while there are still plenty of jobs available for people that want to pursue higher incomes working 50-60 hours per week. Unfortunately, you also do have jobs where people are forced into overtime working 60+ hours per week just to sustain themselves as well. Working hours tend to be balanced along the middle strata of income in the US, steadily rising along either ends of the spectrum (highest earners and lowest earners). Another implication to consider would be that by decreasing working yours, you can employ more people.

 

[Quan8410]

I will probably get a lot of flak for saying this, but I think it would be beneficial for society, demographics and quality of life if Chinese working hours would converge more towards American working hours. Working 996 is pretty unsustainable for both individuals and society. In the US, you have decent paying jobs with standard 40-hour work weeks, while there are still plenty of jobs available for people that want to pursue higher incomes working 50-60 hours per week. Unfortunately, you also do have jobs where people are forced into overtime working 60+ hours per week just to sustain themselves as well. Working hours tend to be balanced along the middle strata of income in the US, steadily rising along either ends of the spectrum (highest earners and lowest earners). Another implication to consider would be that by decreasing working yours, you can employ more people.

There is a time, the golden time of the middle class in US, when a man can work and provide for the whole family as a solo earner, hence the American dream. China, although progressed fast never attain that quality of life. Therefore, people is always seeking to earn more and money is the goal rather than the tool of life.

 

[paiemon]

I will probably get a lot of flak for saying this, but I think it would be beneficial for society, demographics and quality of life if Chinese working hours would converge more towards American working hours. Working 996 is pretty unsustainable for both individuals and society. In the US, you have decent paying jobs with standard 40-hour work weeks, while there are still plenty of jobs available for people that want to pursue higher incomes working 50-60 hours per week. Unfortunately, you also do have jobs where people are forced into overtime working 60+ hours per week just to sustain themselves as well. Working hours tend to be balanced along the middle strata of income in the US, steadily rising along either ends of the spectrum (highest earners and lowest earners). Another implication to consider would be that by decreasing working yours, you can employ more people.

I totally agree with your sentiment. Working long hours such as 996 is detrimental to people and society. Since low birthrates are an issue, if you want people to get frisky having them toiling away at 996 is probably not going to advance that much. Personally, I think Americans are too devoted to their jobs and place too much emphasis on career achievements or their personal self to their jobs, worst amongst western countries. To me, a job is a means to an end, to live life. But in China, the problem is there is just too much competition for for even decent roles, and there are so many people waiting to take it if you want that you are basically forced to commit to 50-60 hours.

I think people should follow their aspirations, but also need to be realistic and pragmatic. I think many of us have creative aspirations, but let's be real its hard to pay the bills with just that. Its a balance between working the jobs we need to achieve a decent/comfortable standard of living while still having time and energy to devote to individual pursuits that let us dabble in those dreams. Short of legislated government intervention to to tilt the balance towards workers which is how European populations got what they have ,the rest of us in competitive societies will have to strike that balance on our own. in China, its more challenging because there are still plenty of workers. The aging population has certainly forced industrial and certain service sectors to improve what they offer employees to avoid shortages, but as you noted for professional level jobs the market is heavily imbalanced with too many graduates and too few roles so people have no choice but put up with 996. The sad reality is in China there are still plenty of people to exploit in the labour force and most workers don't have the bargaining power, even at the upper quartile but even a convergence towards American labor conditions would be a huge improvement.

Young people in China are now facing the same challenge as young people in western countries which is much of the education they were sold on is badly devalued, and they are left holding the bag to figure out how to maintain the standard of living while not having your soul crushed in the process. Personally, I think what would be great for China would be some kind of national service program that can enroll youths where they can contribute across different sectors of society and be provided renumeration, room & board.

 

[Deleted member 23272]

Chinese government just used the most effective way to stymie such propaganda war by taking away their weapon.

Instead of fixing the issue itself? What other data should the government hide for the sake of denying its enemies "propaganda weapons," and if this is an issue of people's faith in the system, how is inceasing restrictions of data that would concern the average citizen for the sake of "national security" supposed to bolster the government's legitimacy exactly? Oh college graduates in China are left in the dark about their job and economic prospects, ordinary folks are robbed a key metric of the government and economy's performance, but the NYTimes has one less thing negative China story to write about, so checkmate Western world, flawless victory for the CPC?

Plus if this is an issue of propaganda, I'm surprised people aren't saying that China should just throw in the towel right now, considering how low of an opinion even the most hardened Chinese nationalist has of China's information warfare capabilities.

I will probably get a lot of flak for saying this, but I think it would be beneficial for society, demographics and quality of life if Chinese working hours would converge more towards American working hours.

Hardly controversial, even the government at one point banned 996, although from the looks of things I'm surprised they've made little to no effort to enforce it and its still common practice for China's big firms to sometimes work employees until 1 in the morning.

 

[Quan8410]

Hardly controversial, even the government at one point banned 996, although from the looks of things I'm surprised they've made little to no effort to enforce it and its still common practice for China's big firms to sometimes work employees until 1 in the morning.

Well, everything in China is cheap for a reason. But, actually China firms is still playing with catchup with other countries. They have to try as twice or thrice to eventually catchup. So cannot cut slack until China got truly dominant.

 

[SanWenYu]

Here it the statement from the CN National Stats on why they are having the youth employment data on hold starting in Aug: "to refine the methodology and process for better data". In particular, it seems that they are debating whether students should be counted as jobless if they starting looking for job before they graduate.

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国家统计局：8月起，全国青年人等分年龄段的城镇调查失业率将暂停发布​

付凌晖表示，自今年8月份开始，全国青年人等分年龄段的城镇调查失业率将暂停发布，主要原因是：经济社会在不断发展变化，统计工作需要不断完善，劳动力调查统计也需要进一步健全优化。

比如，近年来，我国城镇青年人中，在校学生规模不断扩大。2022年，我国16-24岁城镇青年有9600多万人，其中在校学生达到6500多万人。在校学生的主要任务是学习，毕业前寻找工作的学生是否应纳入劳动力调查统计，社会各方面有不同的看法，需要进一步研究。

Here are the updates on what actions some of the provincial governments been taking to help the jobless youth:

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多地发文促进青年就业！措施包括就业补贴、扩大政策性岗位规模等​

稳就业是当前关注度最高的经济话题之一。据澎湃新闻不完全统计，截至目前，至少有广东、上海、江苏、安徽、辽宁、重庆、福建、四川、湖南、云南、海南、甘肃等地出台省级或市级相关促进青年就业的政策举措，政策出台时间多集中在7月下旬以后。

今年4月，国务院办公厅发布关于优化调整稳就业政策措施全力促发展惠民生的通知，明确提出拓宽渠道促进高校毕业生等青年就业创业，包括，鼓励企业吸纳就业，对企业招用毕业年度或离校2年内未就业高校毕业生、登记失业的16-24岁青年，签订1年以上劳动合同的，可发放一次性吸纳就业补贴；鼓励引导基层就业；支持国有企业扩大招聘规模；稳定机关事业单位岗位规模等。

从重点政策举措来看，上述各地几乎都提出，对吸纳高校毕业生等重点群体就业的，兑现社会保险补贴、吸纳就业补贴、职业培训补贴等政策。