At South China Morning Post last week, Mandy Zuo reported on employment targets announced at the Two Sessions legislative and advisory meetings, which concluded on Tuesday in Beijing:
The Chinese government wants the economy to create more than 12 million new urban jobs in 2025 while facing “more pronounced structural employment problems”, Premier Li Qiang said in his annual work report to China’s top legislature, the National People’s Congress, on Wednesday.
[…] Calling employment the “cornerstone of people’s livelihood”, Li repeated his sentiment from two years prior, when he kicked off his premiership by vowing to “continue to pursue an employment-first strategy”.
[…] The job-creation target for this year is roughly the same as China’s expected number of university graduates – a record-high 12.2 million, based on Ministry of Education estimates.
The large number of migrant workers struggling to find jobs will pose a great challenge, said Xiong Wansheng, a professor specialising in rural development at the East China University of Science and Technology.
[…] He noted particular risks concerning the group of migrant workers born during a baby boom in the late 1960s who have now reached retirement age but mostly do not have pensions.
“The possibility of people returning to poverty is there, and the pressure to alleviate poverty is rising,” Xiong added. [Source]
Unemployment has been an increasingly sensitive political issue in recent years. Official data on youth unemployment was temporarily suspended after hitting 21.3% in 2023, and there has been heavy censorship of skepticism about statistics when they are released. Articles posing questions about or analyzing the state of the Chinese economy have also been subject to censorship: in early March, just before the opening of the Two Sessions, an article titled "Ten Questions About the Chinese Economy in 2025" was deleted from WeChat.
On March 1, a job fair in Hangzhou brought together 35,000 job seekers with 830 potential employers, from state-owned enterprises to tech companies like Alibaba and Hikvision. While media reports highlighted attendees’ impressive qualifications and the number of initial contacts made, Weibo users noted that a publicity photo of the event bore a strong resemblance to the exhibition hall of Xi’an’s famous Terracotta Warriors. This visual echo resonated with unemployed or underemployed young Chinese who have previously described themselves as "huminerals" to be mined or "chives" to be harvested to fuel an economy from whose benefits they feel largely excluded. A viral image juxtaposing the "Terracotta Warriors of Xi’an" with the "Team-of-cattle Warriors of Hangzhou" was censored on Weibo:
Chinese editors compiled some comments from social media users on the parallel:
春语流年： The Terracotta Warriors aren’t packed in as tightly.
每天都要睡大觉才行： I can’t bring myself to laugh—I’m one of them.
蟹大夫： A flood of livestock. [牛马涌 (niúmǎyòng), an auditory and visual pun on 兵马俑 (bīngmǎyǒng), the Chinese term for the Terracotta Warriors]
85464Zhang： For today’s young Chinese, being worked like an ox or horse is a blessing for which they’ll burn incense in thanks.
蝈半仙： They’re both burial pits.
瓦尔登的船夫_V： Different armies, same hole.
nononin08292082： LOL, every dynasty has its team-of-cattle warriors.
FurinaDF： Xi Jinping’s from Shaanxi, he really is a Qin Emperor.
frujjnb： It’s too sensitive, it’s blocked already.
没有了舵手的船： The image got deleted. [Chinese]
