Shadowing Practice: Where are China’s youth headed in a crowded job market? - Learn English Speaking with Video

Young Jie It's not like working in the past.

The past year, if you go to a boss, you will always be able to find your HR.

Now you can find your HR.

It's not a fool, it's a fool.

Young Jie graduated from university six years ago, but she has struggled since then to find stable work in China's increasingly competitive job market.

Earlier this year, Young left her rural hometown in Hunan province to look for work in Shenzhen.

Once there, she found many other young job seekers just like her, staying in youth hostels to save money as they tried to land a steady job.

To be able to afford living in China's tech hub, some cram into tiny flats, or even bed share with a roommate.

But competition is only growing fiercer.

As more young graduates head into an already overcrowded job market, in a country where youth unemployment has been a persistent issue in recent years.

Soaring unemployment in China is a key political concern.

Obviously the Covid hit to the labour market.

China says it won't publish youth unemployment data until it reviews how the data is collected.

A few years ago, when the youth unemployment rate went over 20%, the government rejigged the methodology, the number fell down.

Now, even with the new methodology, we're back hovering close to 20%.

So why has China's labour market remained doubly sluggish?

And where are young people headed in an ever -crowded job market?

To better understand the struggles of China's youth, let's first look at why job competition in the country is so fierce.

One of the main reasons is that the growth rate of the economy has slowed, which has led to fewer jobs being created.

But despite falling labor demand, thousands of universities across China have continued sending waves of graduates into the market.

This summer, China saw a record 12 .7 million university graduates ready to join the workforce.

We've already reduced two points.

The job level of work in the past 10 years will be less than 500 ,000 people in the past.

This is the main reason for the pandemic in the pandemic.

For the better part of the past century, getting accepted into university was enough to make most Chinese families proud.

But after Beijing initiated a rapid expansion of higher education in 1999, The number of universities grows dramatically,

as did the societal expectations placed on young people.

As degrees have become more common, a diploma from a top university or even a master's degree or PhD no longer guarantees a good job.

That shift has given rise to the phrase Rotten -tail kids.

When the property market collapsed, you had Lamwe Lo.

In other words, these properties that had been invested in, that then the property market collapsed, they're half -finished buildings, it's a rotten investment.

But you now have this, people are saying this about children, where they're like, ah, I have a rotten -tailed child, because I've put all of this investment,

I've spent so much of my money on this kid, and the kid has graduated from college, there's no jobs, it was a bad investment

and there's a much higher percentage of Chinese people that Chinese families spend on extracurricular schooling,

much longer hours for Chinese children to be in school than in comparable countries.

At the same time, China is trying to address a mismatch between the degrees universities offer and the skills needed in today's job market.

Artificial intelligence has given rise to jobs like robot debugging engineers, algorithm developers, and AI product managers.

But these industries currently face a talent shortage.

To better align with national development goals, China's universities cut 12 ,000 so -called obsolete degrees between 2021 and 2025.

Most of the cuts were concentrated in the arts, humanities, foreign languages, and management.

Feels increasingly seen as outdated or oversaturated in China.

But some experts say those changes would not pay off anytime soon.

As you can see, the demand of the industry has become a huge change, but the demand of the supply chain is later on.

More young Chinese are finding themselves considering an option unpopular with earlier generations, working in civil service.

As China embraced a market economy during the reform and opening up era starting in 1978,

many Chinese gave up civil service jobs for the private sector.

This bold move was known as 下海, or going to the sea A reference to people diving in to trace opportunities But in recent years,

phrases like these have gone viral online In 2025,

civil service exam candidates outnumbered those taking postgraduate exams for the

first time ever A record 3 .7 million people competed for these iron rice bowl draws which are seen as stable, secure, and guaranteed for life,

much like a bowl of rice that never runs empty.

Oftentimes, these jobs are highly, highly desired and valued for a sense of stability and also for a sense of respectability.

So that, in part, reflects the great sense of precarity and uncertainty that young Chinese adults face.

But at the same time, it does beg the question of, in trying to secure these types of jobs,

we are also seeing young adults perhaps articulating or experiencing a different kind of bonding with the party state.

Some of these fresh graduates may feel a greater sense of security by linking their own fate with that of the nation.

But the path is far from easy.

For some popular posts, the competition ratio has reached 2 ,000 to 1.

Many young people, unable to find stable jobs, can only turn to the country's vast gig economy to support themselves.

According to the China New Employment Forum's Research Center, China's flexible workforce reached 320 million,

nearly half of the country's labor force.

It also found that more than 53 million people work as full delivery or ride -hailing drivers as of 2025,

an increase of 10 million from just two years ago The

government calls the sector an employment reservoir where the unemployed can

find reprieve in part -time jobs to ease social pressure

And this reservoir is in danger of overflowing as the market becomes oversaturated For three hours,

I don't want to get out of it, and I can't get out of it.

These are not enough jobs, or low -quality jobs.

These are the goals of the jobs that we are looking for.

The goal is to bear with me, and it is not a solution to continue.

Bleak job prospects are also reshaping the dreams of young Chinese graduates.

In the past, many from the rural areas believed that studying and working hard would help them secure careers in the big cities.

But many now have been forced to return to their hometowns after failing to land jobs there.

The trend has also led to a drop in the number of their young workforce in some major cities.

According to China's statistical yearbook, the number of Beijing permanent residents aged 20 to 29 almost halved between 2015 and 2024.

Oftentimes we see the transition into higher education

and then the transition into first job as crucial milestones in the transition of adulthood,

in young adults becoming people of their own and embarking on life of their own.

Although what a good job entails have shifted over the past decades in contemporary China,

one theme that has remained consistent is that jobs

and having a good job

and employment is in many ways central to one's sense of self

and to one's sense of moral worth and to one's sense of dignity and promise.

So, what has the government done to address the issue?

It has made clear in its latest five -year plan that the bottom line will be avoiding large -scale unemployment.

The government blueprint sets out to stabilize jobs in labor -intensive sectors, while expanding employment in sectors including elderly care,

childcare, tourism, and catering, among others.

The strategy also views the AI industry as a major job source.

But experts say structural shifts will take years to unfold.

We can see that it has a certain effect, but it's not easy to change the trend.

In the past 10 years, it's a key to the Chinese economy.

This unfortunately means that you are going to have this big,

every year, chronic issue of too many people entering the job market and not being absorbed,

and then having to compete with the previous people who are either unemployed or underemployed.

And until the outlook improves, young people like Yang Jie say they have no choice but to manage their expectations.

Thank you.

Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?

Shadowing is een wetenschappelijk onderbouwde taalleermethode die oorspronkelijk is ontwikkeld voor professionele tolkentraining en gepopulariseerd door polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. De methode is eenvoudig maar krachtig: je luistert naar native Engelse audio en herhaalt het onmiddellijk hardop — als een schaduw die de spreker volgt met slechts 1–2 seconden vertraging. In tegenstelling tot passief luisteren of grammaticadrills, dwingt shadowing je hersenen en mondspieren om echte spraakpatronen tegelijkertijd te verwerken en te reproduceren. Onderzoek toont aan dat het de uitspraaknauwkeurigheid, intonatie, ritme, verbonden spraak, luisterbegrip en spreekvaardigheid aanzienlijk verbetert — waardoor het een van de meest effectieve methoden is voor IELTS Speaking-voorbereiding en echte Engelse communicatie.

Shadowing Practice: Where are China’s youth headed in a crowded job market? - Learn English Speaking with Video

Over deze les

Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?