Trading Prestige in China For Jobs Without Stress
By most measures, Loretta Liu had it made. She graduated in 2018 from one of China’s top universities, rented an apartment in the glamorous city of Shenzhen, and had been hired as a visual designer at a series of high-flying companies, even as youth unemployment in China was reaching record highs.
Then, last year, she quit. She now works as a pet groomer for one-fifth of her previous salary. She spends hours on her feet, wearing a uniform instead of once carefully selected outfits. And she is delighted. “I didn’t feel like I was getting anything from the work,” Ms. Liu said of her previous job, where she said she had little creative freedom, often worked overtime, and felt her health deteriorating. “So I thought, there’s no need anymore.”
Ms. Liu is part of a phenomenon attracting growing attention in China: young people trading high-pressure, prestigious white-collar jobs for manual labor. The scale of the trend is hard to measure, but widely shared social media posts have documented a tech worker becoming a grocery store cashier; an accountant peddling street sausages; a content manager delivering takeout. On Xiaohongshu, an Instagram-like app, the hashtag “My first experience with physical labor” has more than 28 million views.
Proponents describe the joy of predictable hours and a less competitive atmosphere. They acknowledge that the change requires sacrifices — Ms. Liu said she saved about $15,000 before quitting and has cut her spending drastically — but say that they are worth it. Ms. Liu said she much preferred the physical exhaustion of wrestling with uncooperative dogs to the mental toll of poring over design assignments she had not chosen.
Around the world, the pandemic spurred people to reassess the value of their work. But in China, the forces fueling the disillusionment of young people are particularly intense. Long working hours and domineering managers are common. The economy is also slowing, dimming the prospect of upward mobility.
Two years ago, a similar call to quit work and enjoy life, dubbed “lying flat,” spread widely. Critics accused adherents of wasting their parents’ investment and abandoning the industriousness that helped build China into a superpower. But others blamed a values system that had prioritized a consumerist path to success.
A record number of students are expected to graduate from universities this year, even as companies have cut back on hiring. The unemployment rate among people ages 16 to 24 was nearly 20 percent last summer, with the rate higher among college graduates.
So some are choosing a different route rather than trying harder to compete.
“The purpose of studying and accumulating knowledge is not to land an impressive job, but to have the bravery to accept more possibilities,” reads one online post.