Chinese unemployed young adults who pretend to have a job

No one would want to work without receiving a salary or worse-to pay to be there.

Still, paying companies, so you can pretend to work for them, has become popular with young, unemployed adults in China. This has led to an increasing number of such suppliers.

The development comes against the background of the slow market for economics and jobs in China. Chinese youth unemployment remains stubbornly high, compared to more than 14%.

With real jobs increasingly difficult to find, some young adults would prefer to pay to get into an office than just sit at home.

The 30-year-old Shui Zhou had a grocery company that failed in 2024. In April this year, he started paying 30 yuan ($ 4.10; £ 3.10) a day to enter a model office run by a business called North, in the town of Dulngan, 71 km (71 km (71 KM (71 KM (71 KM (71 KM (71 KM (71 KM (71 KM (71 KM) (71 KM (71 KM (71 KM) (71 KM (71 KM (71 KM) (71 KM (71 KM (71

There he joins five “colleagues” who do the same.

“I feel very happy,” says G -N Zhou. “We seem to work together as a group.”

Similar operations are now emerging in major cities in China, including Shenzhen, Shanghai, Nankin, Wuhan, Chendu and Kunmin. More often, they look like fully functional offices and are equipped with computers, internet access, meeting rooms and tea rooms.

And instead of attendees who just sit around, they can use job search computers or try to start their own startup business. Sometimes the daily fee, usually between 30 and 50 yuan, includes lunch, snacks and drinks.

Dr Christian Yao, a senior lecturer at the University of Victoria at the Wellington School of Management in New Zealand, is an expert in Chinese economy.

“The phenomenon of pretending to work now is very common,” he says. “Due to the economic transformation and the mismatch between education and the labor market, young people need these places to think about their next steps or to do strange jobs as a transition.

“Pretend office companies are one of the transitional solutions.”

G -n Zhou came across the job company as he was browsing the social media website Xiaohongshu. He says he thinks the office environment will improve his self -discipline. He has been there now for more than three months.

Dzhou sent pictures of his parents’ office and he says they feel much more relaxed than his lack of work.

While attendees can arrive and leave whenever they want, d -Zhu usually reaches the office between 8am and 9am. Sometimes he doesn’t leave until 11:00 pm, just leaving after the business manager left.

He adds that other people there are now like friends. He says that when someone is busy, when hunting, he works hard, but when they have free time, they talk, joke and play games. And they often had dinner together after work.

Dzhou says he likes this team to build and that he is much more happier than before he joins.

In Shanghai, Xiaowen Tang has hired a workstation at a sharing company in Shanghai for a month earlier this year. The 23-year-old graduated from the university last year and has not yet found a full-time job.

Her university has an unwritten rule that students should sign an employment contract or provide evidence of an internship within one year after graduation; Otherwise, they will not receive a diploma.

She sent the office scene to the school as proof of her internship. In fact, she paid the daily fee and sat in the office and wrote online novels to win some pocket money.

“If you are going to fake it, just fake it to the end,” says G -Ja Tang.

Dr. Biao Siang, Director of the Max Planck Social Anthropology Institute in Germany, says China, who pretends to be working on a “feeling of powerlessness and powerlessness” in terms of lack of job opportunities.

“Demanding a job is a shell that young people find for themselves, creating a slight distance from the main society and give themselves a little space.”

The owner of the Pretend to Work Company in Donguan is the 30-year-old Feyu (nickname). “What I sell is not a workstation, but the dignity of not being a useless person,” he says.

He himself was unemployed in the past, after the previous retail business he had, had to close during the Covid pandemic. “I was very depressed and a little self -destructive,” he recalls. “You wanted to turn the tide, but you’re powerless.”

In April this year, he began to advertise claims that he was working and within a month all workstations were full. The possible new carpenters must apply.

Feiyu says 40% of customers are recent graduates of university who come to take pictures to prove their experience of their former teachers. While a small number of them come to help deal with pressure from their parents.

The remaining 60% are freelancers, many of whom are digital nomads, including those working for large e -commerce companies and cyber spellers. The average age is about 30, with 25 being 25.

Officially, these workers are referred to as “flexible employment specialists”, grouping, which also includes driving drivers and truck drivers.

In the long run, Feiyu says it is debatable whether the business will remain profitable. Instead, he likes to consider it more as a social experiment.

“He uses lies to maintain respect, but it allows some people to find the truth,” he says. “If we only help users to extend their acting skills, we are complicit in gentle fraud.

“Just by helping them turn their fake workplace into a true starting point, this social experiment can really fulfill its promise.”

Dzhou now spends the bigger part of his time, improving his AI skills. He says he has noticed that some companies point out skills in AI tools when recruiting. Thus, he believes that acquiring such skills for AI “will make it easier” to find a full -time job.