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China’s jobless youth and the parable of Kong Yiji
How China’s growing ranks of unemployed graduates came to compare their predicament with that of a fictional Qing dynasty scholar.
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A graduation ceremony at Central China Normal University in Wuhan in 2021. China's youth unemployment rate for May hit 20.8 per cent.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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BEIJING – Postgraduate student Shelly Gu has sent out about 80 job applications since August 2022 but secured only one offer so far.
“I consider myself lucky to get even a single offer,” said Ms Gu, 23, a chemical engineering student from a university in Zhejiang province. “I have friends who are still looking for jobs, and they have not secured anything.”
