Beijing, China

China's rising youth unemployment rate is becoming a significant economic challenge for the country and it seems to have come up with some controversial solutions. China's wealthiest province and manufacturing giant, Guangdong, has proposed to send 300,000 jobless youth to the countryside for two to three years to find employment.

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The province which borders Hong Kong said this month that it will assist fresh college graduates and young entrepreneurs in finding employment in rural areas. It also urged young people who were from rural areas and moved to urban cities, to move back there and search for work. As per reports, one in five young people in Chinese cities are out of work. 

China's youth unemployment has been a concern in recent years, with the country's economic slowdown and shifting employment landscape contributing to challenges for young job seekers. The announcement came in response to Chinese President Xi Jinping's call in December for urban youth to seek employment in rural areas in an effort to "revitalise the rural economy."

Xi's announcement was a callback to a campaign launched by the late leader Mao Zedong decades earlier that exiled tens of millions of urban youth to outlying regions of China.

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The Guangdong proposal, which received harsh criticism on social media, came as the urban jobless rate for those between the ages of 16 and 24 shot up to 19.6 per cent, the second-highest figure on record. According to CNN calculations using the most recent statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, that percentage corresponds to nearly 11 million young people without jobs in China's cities and towns. It is pertinent to note that China only makes employment data available for urban areas.

Around 11.6 million college students are expected to graduate this year and enter the job market, pushing the youth unemployment rate to rise even further.

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“If the earlier COVID-19 protests reveal anything, it’s that large numbers of angry, well-educated youth in China’s cities could present big problems for the ruling Chinese Communist Party,” said Alex Capri, a research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation.

“Dispersing them to smaller villages in the countryside could mitigate this risk and, possibly, help diminish income disparities between China’s tier 1 and tier 2 cities and the poorer areas of the country.”

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The economic slowdown in China is primarily due to rising rates of unemployment among young people.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also had a significant impact on the job market, with many businesses forced to close or reduce their workforce. Over the past three years, small businesses and consumer spending have both been severely impacted by the government's now-defunct harsh Covid policy.

The private sector, which accounts for more than 80 per cent of jobs in China, was also harmed by a regulatory crackdown on the Internet, real estate, and education businesses.

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The challenges facing young job seekers in China include a mismatch between the skills and qualifications of graduates and the needs of the job market, as well as a lack of job opportunities in certain industries and regions.

To address youth unemployment, the Chinese government has implemented a range of policies and initiatives, including vocational training programs, subsidies for employers who hire graduates, and support for entrepreneurship and small business development. However, some experts have argued that more needs to be done to address the root causes of youth unemployment, including reforms to the education system and more investment in industries that are likely to create jobs for young people.

Overall, China's youth unemployment remains a significant challenge, and addressing it will be crucial for the country's future economic growth and social stability.

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