Iron Rice Bowl Broken: Beijing Editor Idle, Tsinghua PhD Sells Cigarettes

The job fair was packed with people, but only a few actually found jobs. (Video screenshot)

[People News] The unemployment wave of 2025 is not a sudden tsunami; it has already roared ashore, flooding cities and industries, and seeping into countless households. It's not just the factories in third- and fourth-tier cities that are empty and the malls that are closing; even the once-thriving first-tier cities are now witnessing major layoffs and vacant office buildings, leaving a scene of devastation.

Sister A is a senior editor at a publishing house in Beijing. In 2025, at the age of middle adulthood, she was unexpectedly laid off. Typically introverted and reserved, she had no choice but to set up a stall selling small toys under the streetlights at night to make ends meet. Initially, she often faced eviction from urban management officers, hiding and running while crying. Over time, she stopped crying, and eventually, her husband joined her in pedalling a tricycle to sell goods, calling out to attract customers. When the urban management officers returned, Sister A would not even look at them, calmly packing up her things while exchanging witty remarks with the officers. It is often said that character determines destiny, and Sister A has demonstrated how destiny can shape character.

This is not a fictional story; it is a true account from Beijing. The publishing industry is a state-owned enterprise, and Beijing serves as the national cultural centre. The publishing sector was once a reliable iron rice bowl, but it has now crumbled under the economic downturn.

Sister A's colleague, Sister B, was a graphic designer. After being laid off, she started her own home bakery, selling cakes to her social circle. Male colleague C, after losing his job, went to work on a construction site moving bricks, while male colleague D became a delivery rider.

The male colleague known as 'Strong Uncle', aged 48, is currently live-streaming on YouTube, sharing a story that evokes a mix of emotions. 'Strong Uncle' shares that he was once the deputy editor at a publishing house, and before the pandemic, he switched to a public-private mixed book company. Five years ago, he earned a post-tax monthly salary of 12,000 yuan, but before being laid off, his salary had plummeted to just 2,000 yuan. The company had dozens of employees before the pandemic, but after three years of dynamic zero-COVID policies, it faced a survival crisis, resulting in significant layoffs, with only a few middle management staff remaining. Ultimately, the layoffs also affected middle-level cadres. 'Strong Uncle's' father had just undergone surgery, his son is 12 years old, and his spouse's salary is modest. After losing his job, he pretended to go to work and shared his unemployment experience in front of the camera in a park in Beijing. Now, he relies on painting, writing novels, and live streaming to make ends meet.

The stories of Sister A and others, if incorporated into the discourse of the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda, would undoubtedly be framed as inspirational and positive. At the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Bureau of Statistics, they would likely be presented as solid, high-quality data: the economy is recovering, successful re-employment has occurred, data is stable, and policies are being implemented. As for whether the lives of ordinary people are tight, that is of no concern to the Party.

In reality, this group of individuals is mostly nearing fifty. If they were to retire, they would still be considered young, especially with the retirement age being extended. As for re-employment, they are too old and often overlooked; everyone still has elderly parents to care for and young children to support. This kind of hardship can be felt even through the screen. This suffering is precisely what Xi Jinping and the Communist Party regime have relentlessly perpetuated, and it still shows no signs of abating.

Recently, a financial blogger from mainland China revealed that the proportion of flexible employment in urban areas is projected to "return to a high level, nearing 35%" by 2025. The platform economy, food delivery services, ride-hailing, and other forms of flexible and new employment are portrayed by the Chinese official narrative as a reservoir for job absorption. According to some unofficial or research reports, the total scale of flexible employment in China is estimated to be around 230 to 287 million, which accounts for approximately 27% to 37% of the total employed population. Furthermore, the proportion of flexible employment among college graduates is expected to reach about 35%.

Flexible employment refers to gig work, where individuals may have work one moment and be without it the next. This cannot be considered a reservoir for employment; rather, it serves as a facade for the high unemployment rate in mainland China. When a significant number of workers are laid off from private companies, state-owned enterprises, and public institutions, flexible employment becomes a statistical tool for the Chinese Communist Party's National Bureau of Statistics. By categorising data under flexible employment, the official unemployment rate can be maintained at a favourable level.

According to data from the Ministry of Education of the Chinese Communist Party, there will be 12.22 million college graduates nationwide in 2025, and it is anticipated that there will be 12.7 million graduates in 2026, marking an increase of 480,000 from the previous year and setting a new historical high.

What does this imply? With approximately 3,000 county-level cities across the country, the 12.7 million graduates mean that each county must create an average of 4,000 new jobs in 2026. When factoring in the unemployed positions from 2025, each county needs to generate between 5,000 and 6,000 new positions. This figure pertains only to college graduates and does not account for the overall employment numbers in urban areas, which also include countless middle-aged individuals facing career crises.

An article on the mainland Zhihu website, authored by Ye Li Zi and titled "How Severe is the Current Employment Situation?" asserts that the current employment landscape is "more severe than most people realise and more complex than what is depicted online." The author argues that the existing employment challenges are not merely about "inability to find jobs," but signify a deep structural transformation. The inflation of educational qualifications, contraction of industries, and the emergence of new models are reshaping the fundamental dynamics of the labour market.

The article points out that the collapse of the real estate sector and the internet economy is the primary source of employment pressure. In the first half of 2025, layoffs in the real estate industry and its related sectors exceeded one million. The previously booming internet industry also saw layoffs of 137,000 during the same period, with Alibaba's workforce shrinking by over 50% from its peak. These sectors, which once served as a reservoir for college graduates seeking employment, have now sharply contracted, leading to a significant oversupply in the job market.

Simultaneously, the inflation of educational qualifications and the devaluation of knowledge have resulted in a normalisation of situations where highly educated individuals are underutilised or placed in roles that could be filled by high school graduates. The author cites a source from the mainland power sector, who notes that graduates from Tsinghua University's Electrical Engineering Department, along with master's and doctoral students from 985 and 211 universities, are competing to secure positions in small county power systems, performing tasks such as substation inspections and meter readings—jobs that could originally be handled by junior high or high school graduates. This trend has emerged because the power system offers stable positions and guaranteed salaries within the state-run framework.

The article notes that in the 2024 campus recruitment by China Tobacco, a frontline cigarette sorting position at a provincial bureau is exclusively filled by master's degree holders, with the highest qualification being a PhD obtained from studying in the UK, who is now sorting cigarettes. A decade ago, a junior college graduate could easily secure a teller position at one of the six major state-owned banks. Today, a 985 undergraduate degree is the minimum requirement, with a significant influx of graduate students. When you visit a bank for transactions, the young woman who hands you cash might be a master's graduate from Renmin University.

The article concludes that the vast number of jobs generated by China's rapid economic growth over the past twenty years is primarily based on three pillars: the real estate bubble, the internet traffic dividend, and the demographic dividend. Thus, the employment situation is not merely a 'temporary difficulty,' but rather a 'structural adjustment.'

In reality, the current state of the Chinese economy has surpassed simple structural adjustments, revealing a systemic conflict marked by multiple deep-rooted contradictions and chaotic interconnections. Traditional pillar industries such as real estate, the internet, and certain manufacturing sectors are in continuous decline, with overcapacity existing alongside weak demand, resulting in disruptions in the industrial chain and job losses.

Simultaneously, in emerging sectors like new energy and artificial intelligence, the Communist Party continues to adopt a model of national subsidies and large-scale investments reminiscent of a Great Leap Forward. While this approach may yield short-term results, in the long run, issues such as technological bottlenecks, supply chain dependencies, international barriers, and domestic overcapacity will inevitably arise, making it challenging to sustain high-quality economic growth. Additionally, the ongoing increase in the number of college graduates, the rapid devaluation of educational credentials, and significant mismatches in job market supply and demand further exacerbate employment bottlenecks, adding to the challenges facing the Chinese economy.

However, beneath these apparent phenomena lies a profound constraint at the systemic and mechanistic levels. In recent years, the policies of the Xi Jinping administration have increasingly favoured the state-owned economy, bolstering state-owned enterprises while simultaneously intensifying crackdowns, regulations, and restrictions on the private sector, particularly targeting leading private companies. The notion of 'common prosperity' effectively represents a reversal of the market economy's incentive mechanisms and a betrayal of private property rights. This shift in direction has resulted in a persistent decline in entrepreneurs' confidence, a lack of enthusiasm for private investment, and a significant suppression of innovative vitality.

If the Xi-style economic model continues to prevail, the Chinese economy may face a comprehensive risk of collapse in the coming years, characterised by a complete extinguishing of growth momentum, severe external spillover of debt risks, and a drastic deterioration of social expectations.

(First published by the People News) △