Youth unemployment, which reached a record level in May, at 18.4%, can it destabilize power? In recent months, Premier Li Keqiang has raised the issue at least five times in meetings, calling on the government and local authorities to “stabilize” the employment situation. Affected by the real estate crisis and by the zero Covid policy, maintained at all costs by the authorities, Chinese growth should reach its lowest level since the beginning of the 1990s, at around 4%, far from the official forecasts of 5.5%. .
The last time China experienced mass unemployment, after massive layoffs in the public sector in the late 1990s, a surge in activity soon after made it possible to quickly absorb the jobless. During the 2008 crisis, the State intervened with a massive recovery plan, again allowing activity to resume quickly. Each time, youth unemployment had been reduced even more quickly. But today, with the structural slowdown in growth, the situation has changed. And the country risks being faced with long-term unemployment.
With what impact on youth? “In general, young people do not stay unemployed for very long. Second, they tend to rely on their own strengths, rather than turning to the state: most have joined the competition”underlines Chloé Froissart, professor of political sociology at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations, specialist in social mobilizations in China.
“Repression has been reinforced”
In fact, unemployed young people contacted by The world tend to consider themselves responsible for their situation: “I was less motivated than other students, I didn’t send many CVs”, estimates Mr. Wang (he does not give his first name), a young person who spent eight months without a job, in 2021, after leaving university. However, he had sent more than a hundred applications and had twenty interviews before finding an employer.
The mobilization of young unemployed people is all the less likely since they are by definition isolated on leaving university, unlike factory workers, for example, who can unite within their company. This was the case at the end of the 1990s, in protest against massive layoffs in state enterprises. Above all, the possibilities of mobilization have been drastically reduced by the tightening of control over society, with heavy penalties for protesters.
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