Opinion | China’s work culture must change to give young people hope again

The labour force is grappling with a problem of youth unemployment, including among university graduates. This workforce cohort is seemingly caught in a painful pincer movement. On one side they face economic changes and reduced demand for their labour and, on the other, there are social changes shaping new views on work and work ethics.

China’s economic transformation into the “workshop of the world” lifted people out of poverty and created a growing middle class. Its rapid growth can be seen in a similar way to the economic miracle of the “Asian tigers”, which economist Paul Krugman dubbed a myth “based on perspiration rather than inspiration”. Total factor productivity did not increase, but rather those countries merely added more labour and capital.

Nevertheless, people were led to believe that, through hard work and education, China’s economic miracle would always improve everyone’s lot in life and newer generations would do better than earlier ones. Work hard and get degrees seems to be the implicit mantra for success.

This economic boom occurred in the context of the clarion calls of tech titans and others for the “huge blessing” of working a 996 schedule – working 9am to 9pm six days a week. The most striking version of this corporate hustle culture is the 007 schedule, in which employees are available online for work at any hour every day.

The sense of certainty around China’s growth and its effects seems to have been upended amid growing economic upheaval. This is moving the economy away from the classic mass production manufacturing of the workshop of the world, with its seemingly insatiable demand for workers draining the countryside, shifting it towards new quality productive forces and greater consumption. This is likely to require less labour input.