In other ways, however, the official statistics may actually underestimate young people’s struggles—particularly for university graduates. A spring 2023 survey by job-search platform Zhaopin found that, for the second year in a row, only about 50% of graduating university students had an offer in hand by late spring—down from 63% in 2021 and about three quarters in 2018. Moreover, nearly a quarter of those surveyed hoped to enter the information-technology and internet sector, where salaries have traditionally been among the highest on offer. That industry, although recovering now, was hit hard by the regulatory crackdown of 2021 and 2022, with major job cuts among key employers such as Alibaba, Tencent and Didi.
Whatever the true level of youth unemployment is, what does seem clear is that it has marched much higher over the past four years. This is also what official statistics show.