According to MarketWatch, another sign of a shrinking Chinese economy is the rising number of unemployed golf caddies:
In recent weeks, China has gone from optimism it could escape the global slowdown to a realization its export sector would take a direct hit — November exports are expected to have shrunk in value for the first time in seven years — and finally, to worries the whole economy is on the floor.’
J.P. Morgan, in a new strategy note, pinpoints the “collapse of the domestic housing market” for spreading the feel-bad factor around.
Leaving aside the export sector, it seems intuitive that many of the industries that fed off the asset and property bubble on the way up will be spat out on the way down. One surprising new casualty of the economy is the jobless golf caddie.