On the outskirts of Beijing, dozens of men gather each day on a street corner known as the Majuqiao Day Labor Market. It is a place where people pick up odd jobs.

One after another, men approached Marketplace and asked, “You’ve got work?” or “How much are you paying?”

Among the job-seekers is 39-year-old Wang Wei. He is a demolition contractor. For example, if a mall decides to renovate, Wang is the one who goes in and strips out everything.

“It’s hard to earn money this year and manual work is not easy. I swing big hammers and carry industrial waste,” he said.

In China, the economy last year officially grew at the government target of 5% and unemployment was at 5.1%. Chinese officials say those statistics prove that the job market has “stabilized.” However, that is not how people seem to be feeling on the ground. 

Wang is struggling because there is a lot less renovation these days. The property market in China is still in a slump, which has slowed Chinese economic growth.

At the Majuqiao market on the day Marketplace visited, mostly factory work manufacturing electrical appliances, electrical components and auto parts were on offer — work that did not appeal to job-seeker Jiang Shan.

“Their hourly pay is 20 yuan,” he said.

That works out to $2.70 an hour, which is lower than Beijing’s municipal minimum wage of $3.60.

China’s manufacturing sector is dealing with U.S.-China trade tensions, a war in Ukraine and sluggish domestic demand.

“Now, there are fewer decent jobs and more job-seekers,” Wang said.

The story is the same for university grads.

Youth unemployment up hit a record 21% in June of 2023. Officials stopped reporting the number for months. Then rejiggered the calculation method to more “accurately reflect” reality by not counting those students looking for part-time work while they’re still studying. The jobless rate for youths last year averaged 16%, up from 11.9% in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.

TikTok’s Chinese sister site Douyin is full of gripes about the job market.

Douyin user Yangxiguapi said in a video that initially she did not worry about the job hunt as she is graduating from one of China’s top 100 universities this June.

“But I didn’t expect reality to slap me in the face so quickly,” she said. “I’ve applied for jobs where there were a few thousand applicants, but some firms, including listed companies, ended up only hiring one or two people,” she said, adding that a number of unsuccessful applicants came from better schools or had higher degrees than her.

“The devaluation of college credentials in the labor market is kind of serious,” she said.

Lucrative sectors that used to hire a lot of grads, including high tech and academic tutoring, have been severely curtailed by the government. They have been laying people off.

Employers have the upper hand, as Douyin user “A Little Octopus” found out recently after applying for a teaching job in northeastern China.

“Just had a job interview and it’s so outrageous! They’re offering me a monthly salary of 2,500 yuan,” she said in a video.

That works out to about $4,100 annually to teach six days a week.

“I’m really confused. Is it really that tough for college grads to find jobs these days?” an influencer who goes by Yangmaoyue asked in a playful tone in a video last November. At the time he had over 8 million followers on Douyin.

He implied in that video that young people are maybe too picky.

Within three days, he lost over a million followers.

The influencer, whose real name is Yang Yue, has since deleted the video and issued another one apologizing. Since then, he has not posted any updates. Today, his Douyin account is banned from gaining new followers, which is one of the ways Chinese platforms typically punish users that have posted something controversial.

Young job seekers face another hurdle: companies that go belly up and end up not paying workers.

In a response to influencer Yue mocking young graduates, Douyin user “A Head Full of Latte” said in a video that her job requirements as a graduate from one of China’s top 40 colleges are: a five-day work week instead of the usual six, no more than two days of overtime a week, employer contribution into her social welfare insurance, a commute of less than two hours each way, and an annual salary of $16,400.

“The job doesn’t need to meet all five requirements. Just three out of five is enough,” she said. “My expectations are already low. I’ve had three jobs in the past two years. Either the company laid me off, or it ran out of money and couldn’t pay me. And I’m struggling to live in Beijing. Tell me, is it because I didn’t work hard enough?”

Not getting paid is even more common with manual labor.

Demolition contractor Wang said he and other laborers at the market only take jobs that pay at the end of each day.

“For us, the employer must transfer on the spot via WeChat Pay. We’re very realistic,” he said.

Meanwhile, soon-to-be-graduate Yangxiguapi is lowering her job expectations. She is among the estimated 12 million college students graduating into this job market this year.

“I thought I could find a good job right after graduation and start a sweet life,” Yangxiguapi said in a Douyin video. “Turns out, only crappy jobs are available. And I’m willing to take those. I’d work hard too. But I haven’t even been hired for anything!”

Additional research by Charles Zhang.