Chinese firms step up hiring, but tight-fisted on pay
By Ellen Zhang, Xiaoyu Yin and Marius Zaharia
BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) — Chinese university graduate Zhang Baichuan travels hundreds of kilometres from one job fair to another in a final push to find a better offer than the unappealing one he received after more than 1,000 applications.
He hopes the post-Lunar New Year recruiting season in China, when many companies advertise for new positions, brings more attractive opportunities than the livestream moderator role he was offered recently.
While Zhang, 23, was fine with the 5,000 yuan ($695) monthly salary, with the company covering meals and accommodation, he dreaded the 12-hour shifts, six days a week — known in China as the «996» work culture.
«I'm not keen on a 996 schedule, but I'm considering it as a safety net while I look for better options,» Zhang, who holds a business management degree from Hebei GEO University, said outside his 50-yuan-per-night hostel room in suburban Beijing.
«I don't like the devaluation of degrees, but the reality is that there are more college graduates now,» he said before travelling to another job fair outside of Beijing.
Encouragingly for China's first-quarter economic growth, the post-Lunar New Year recruiting season is off to a stronger start than in 2023, when the world's second-largest economy was going through its biggest COVID-19 infection wave.
But high youth unemployment gives employers a large pool of candidates to choose from, keeping wage growth sluggish and cementing worries China may struggle to boost household consumption enough to stabilise growth and lift the economy out of deflation.
Zhaopin, one of China's biggest recruiting platforms, said in the first week after the Feb. 10-17 break there were 45% more companies
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