In Chinese unemployed young people who work that work

No one would like to work without getting salaries and even worse-paying there.

And yet paid companies so that you can pretend that the work for them became popular with young, unemployed in China. This has led to an increasing number of such suppliers.

Development occurs amid a sluggish economy and jobs in China. Chinese Unemployment among Youth remains stubbornly high, by more than 14%.

With real works, it is more and more difficult to come, some young people are likely to pay for going to the office than just stuck at home.

30-year-old Shui Zhou had an entrepreneurial enterprise that failed in 2024. In April this year, he started paying 30 yuan ($ 4.20; £ 3.10) a day to go to a Micket Office, which is managed by a business called Phirfend to a work campaign, in Dongguan, 114 km (71 miles) north of Hong Kong.

There he joins the five “colleagues” who do the same.

“I feel very happy,” says Mr. Zhou. “It’s like we work together in the group.”

Such operations are now in major cities in China, including Shenzhen, Shanghai, Nanjin, Vukhan, Chengdu and Kunming. Most often, they look like fully functional offices and equipped with computers, internet access, conferences and tea rooms.

And instead of the participants just sitting, they can use computers to search jobs or try to start their own starting business. Sometimes a daily fee is usually 30 to 50 yuan, includes lunch, snacks and drinks.

Dr. Christian Yao, Senior Lecturer at Victoria University University University Victoria in New Zealand, is an expert on China’s economy.

“The phenomenon is pretended to be very common now,” he says. “From the economic transformation and inconsistency between education and the work market, young people need these places to think about the next steps or make strange work as a transition.

“Pretend office companies – one of the transitional solutions.”

Mr. Zhou came across pretending to the work campaign, viewing the Xiaohongshu social media site. He says he feels that the office environment will improve his self -discipline. Now he is there for over three months.

Mr. Zhou sent a photo of the office to his parents, and he says he feels much more calm about his lack of employment.

While participants can come and leave when they want, Mr Zhou usually enters the office between 8am and 9am. Sometimes he does not leave until 11 pm, just going after the business head has gone.

It adds that other people are out there as friends. He says that when someone is busy, for example, hunting, they work a lot, but when they have free time, they chat, joke and play games. And they often have dinner together after work.

Mr. Zhou says he likes the building of this team, and that he is much happier than before he joined.

In Shanghai Xiaowen Tang rented a workstation at the Shanghai Labor Company a month earlier this year. Last year, a 23-year-old guy graduated from the university and has not yet found a full-time work.

Its university has an unwritten rule that students must sign a employment contract or provide evidence of an internship during the year after graduation; Otherwise they will not receive a diploma.

She sent an office scene to the school as evidence of her internship. In reality, she paid a daily fee and sat in the office, writing novels on the Internet to earn pocket money.

“If you are going to fake it, just fake it to the end,” says Ms Tan.

D -R Biao Seng, Director of the Max Planka Institute of Social Anthropology in Germany, says China pretended to work related to “sense of frustration and impotence” regarding the lack of employment opportunities.

“Pretending to work, it is a shell that young people find for themselves, creating a short distance from the main society and giving themselves a small space.”

A 30-year fee (alias) is the owner of a company running at a worker in Donguano. “What I sell is not a working station, but a dignity not to be a useless person,” he says.

He himself was unemployed in the past, after the previous retail business he owned, he had to close during the pandemic. “I was very depressed and a little destructive,” he recalls. “You wanted to turn the tide, but you were powerless.”

In April this year, he began advertising to pretend to work, and within a month all work stations were full. Be future standing, you must apply.

Feiyu say 40% of customers are recent university graduates who come to take pictures to prove their internship experience with their former tutoring. While the small number of them comes to handle the pressure from the parents.

The remaining 60% are freelancers, many of which are digital nomads, including those who work in major e -commerce firms, and cyberspace writers. The average age is about 30, the younger one is 25.

Officially, these workers call “flexible employment specialists”, a group that also includes drivers and truckers.

In the long run, the fairy says it is doubtful whether the business will remain profitable. Instead, he likes to view it as a social experiment.

“It uses lies to maintain respectability, but allows some people to find the truth,” he says. “When we only help users extend their acting skills, we consolidated the soft deception.

“Only by helping them turn their fake job into a real starting point, whether this social experiment is truly fulfilling its promises.”

D -Zhou spends most of his time, improving their AI skills. He says he noticed that some companies show possession of AI tools when set. So, he believes that getting such AI skills will “facilitate” find a full -time job.