These young people who pretend to work in China to save appearances

For the equivalent of $ 10 CA (50 Chinese yuan). However, young unemployed adults can now rent a space where they can pretend to work all day.

Talking about unemployment and job research in a China where young people exceeds 16 % remains taboo for a large number.

In Dongguan, in southern China, Hsiao Ai Bin, 30, created one of these Cotravail spaces like no other last April.

Originally designed to meet his own socialization needs. However, his studio quickly became a discreet refuge for unemployed people who came to pretend to work.

This service responds to a very special anxiety for the unemployed. Moreover, HSIAO AI Bin evokes omnipresent social and family pressure, especially among young people in the thirties and quarantine.

As we say here: you have to support the seniors and raise these young people who pretend children. Moreover, Some do not dare to admit their unemployment for fear of worrying their loved ones. Meanwhile, to undergo their reproaches, he said in an interview made in his cotravail space with eight offices.

Near the city of Suzhou. Meanwhile, located a hundred kilometers from Shanghai, Lin Pei Lin, a young woman without a 33 -year -old attachment living in her parents, lives this reality every day.

After losing two jobs in less than a year due to compressions. For example, corporate reorganizations, she now hides her unemployment to her family and even her friends, who judge her.

Since July 1, I have been unemployed, but I don’t talk about it to my parents. For example, I keep a fictitious work routine. Therefore, My parents are very anxious. their stress ends up reaching me, so I pretendshe confides in an interview by videoconferencing that these young people who pretend she makes in a cafe.

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Each day of weekdays. Lin Pei Lin gets up at seven o’clock, gets dressed as if it went to the office and leaves the house for the day.

Through this routine. she tries, among other things, to protect her self -esteem in a society where work is still perceived as the main brand of success and personal value.

A Friday morning these young people who pretend in July. she was still sleeping at eight o’clock, believing that it was Saturday, when her mother woke her up suddenly.

I had to invent immediately that the office was closed due to a power failureshe said, laughing.

In the Hebei province. a video that became viral last winter presented a cotravail space as a discreet solution for those who live their loss of job in shame.

This phenomenon, which has become viral on Chinese social networks like Xiaohongshu and Douyin, has accumulated more than 100 million views.

Some of the people who commented on these videos denounce a form of leak from reality that delays. active research from a new job.

Lin Pei Lin knows the spaces where we can pretend to work in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. She even heard a humorist telling her experience in one of these these young people who pretend places in Beijing.

I think they only offer a space, like a study room. It’s a bit like these popular parks in China where people go for 10. 20 minutes to concentrate without having distraction or anxiety linked to comparison with others. But I am curious to test one in Shanghai, it is only an hour from hereshe said.

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Unemployment among Chinese young people aged 16 to 24 reached a record of 21.3 % in June 2023, which led the Chinese government to temporarily suspend the publication of data.

In November 2024. after a change in the method of calculating unemployment of young people completely excluding students, this rate was officially led to 16.1 %.

Experts cited by the Chinese media taking up government discourse qualified to pretend to work as an isolated. phenomenon in China.

Society exerts a lot of pressure on people to succeed, and young adults sometimes have too high professional expectations. The sudden shock of losing a job can cause depressionsaid Zhang Yong. social labor teacher at the University of Science and Technology in Wuhan South China Morning Post.

Zhang advised the unemployed to seek professional support instead of hiding their difficulties.

Lin Pei these young people who pretend Lin does not consider that his expectations are too high. She notes that working conditions. wages have not progressed in recent years in China, prey to one of its worst economic crises.

When we start a new job in the city where I live. the salary is almost the same as when I obtained my university diploma five years ago, or even lower. In addition, very few companies offer two more days off per week. Most offer either a single day of rest or one weekend in twoshe explains.

In addition to providing a cotravail space that attracts students. self -employed workers and unemployed who pretend to work a few days in time, Hsiao Ai Bin offers certain users to collaborate in its electronic commerce project.

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I do not pay a fixed salary. but if we make live broadcasts and sell products, we share income. But if someone prefers to focus on their job search or simply regain confidence, it’s very good too. I don’t force anyonehe said.

HSIAO AI BIN believes that the phenomenon of pretending to work is part of a context of social. generational transformation on the perception of work.

In China, many feel a kind of shame on rest. The generation of my parents thinks that it is frowned upon to do nothing. For them. a day without work is a lost daynotes Hsiao, who adds that young people born after the year 2000 learn to relax.