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View of a recent job fair held in Beijing, drawing crowds of young jobseekers. / Jingji Ribao

Work is sacred. That's why people should keep working even if they have plenty of money — that's what gives life meaning. Otherwise, one could fairly say a person is no different from a well-fed pig. But what happens when someone has neither money nor a job? Even someone who devoutly holds to a philosophy of non-possession would find themselves in genuine misery under those circumstances.

Korea likely isn't all that different, but right now, most of China's MZ generation finds itself pushed into precisely this extreme predicament. The reason hardly needs elaborate explanation — youth unemployment has become so severe it's almost beyond description, and the recent AI industry boom has only made things worse. It's become common talk that the "retirement age" in China's ICT industry is effectively 35; the unwritten rule that finding employment past 35 is nearly impossible has become just as much a reality.

According to recent reports from outlets including Jingji Ribao, China's youth unemployment rate for ages 16-24 (excluding students) is estimated at 14.9% as of June 2026. That's down slightly from 15.6% the previous month, but still remains quite high. Moreover, with a staggering 12.7 million college graduates flooding the job market in June and July, it seems only a matter of time before the rate approaches or easily surpasses 20%.

Given this situation, it's hardly surprising that all sorts of bizarre phenomena related to job-hunting have emerged across society. A prime example: on the 11th of last month, a fixed-term civil service exam in Henan Province for rural support positions drew a staggering 140,000 applicants — for what amounts to an effectively two-year contract internship hiring just 3,082 people, with college graduates flocking to it in droves.

What's even more astonishing is that organized, large-scale cheating occurred during this exam, prompting a decision to hold a retest. It's the kind of episode that leaves one with a sense of sorrow — just how desperate must people be to resort to that? Add to this the recent fact that top-scoring prospective college students are increasingly favoring public security and military academies over traditionally prestigious schools like Peking University, Tsinghua, and Fudan, and it becomes clear just how dire the desperation of China's MZ generation truly is.

The problem is that those pushed into extreme despair over having nowhere to work see no way out whatsoever. Even setting aside all pride and turning to flexible gig work like delivery driving, the competition there is fiercely intense too. Zou Xingwen, an employee at a small ICT firm in Beijing who briefly worked as a delivery rider after graduating college, recalled the hardship of his job-hunting days, saying that delivery work is a legitimate job in its own right — you can't slack off, since the competition is fierce, and only by winning that competition can you scrape together enough to get by. It's a comment that carries real weight given the circumstances.

China boasts world-class capability when it comes to the AI industry. Going forward, humanoid robots are highly likely to replace a substantial number of jobs. If that happens, the youth unemployment rate — which, by some estimates, already feels close to 50% in practice — could climb to a level that's genuinely hard to imagine. It's no accident that universities across the country are steadily shutting down liberal arts and business programs while actively pivoting toward launching new AI-related majors. Indeed, without such measures, the scene could well become one of widespread lament — and in that light, such drastic self-preservation measures are understandable.

                                                                                                            Hong Soon-do