A photo essay in Newsweek by Mark Leong looks at the growing numbers of young, urban, white collar workers in China’s IT industry:
The number of college graduates in China is growing far faster than the number of white-collar jobs in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Young people who thought higher education would lead to high-paying jobs and chic apartments are instead cramming by the tens-of-thousands into slums near the IT districts where they seek jobs in computing and programming. The new aspiring professionals are known as “ants” because of both their eagerness to work and a willingness to cram together in poor living conditions. China’s new white-collar underclass is developing an intimate connections as they share struggles and seek to adapt to their nation’s changing society.
