中国民主党全委会美国委员会

THEY KNEW the job market would be tough. None were prepared for just how tough it proved to be.

他们知道就业市场很艰难。但没有人想到竟会如此艰难。

China’s economy is struggling through a sustained slowdown, with real estate developers mired in debt, families fearful of spending and entrepreneurs hesitating to take risks. Joblessness levels among young people have hit record highs.

中国经济正在持续放缓中挣扎，房地产开发商深陷债务泥沼，家庭不敢支出，企业家犹豫是否要冒险。年轻人的失业率创下历史新高。

We spoke to five young Chinese about what it took to find their jobs amid such uncertainty. They described moving home with their parents, exhausting their savings, taking on unpaid internships or working two jobs.

我们采访了五位中国年轻人，了解他们在这种不确定性下如何找到工作。他们描述了搬回父母家、耗尽积蓄、接受无薪实习或同时打两份工等情况。

They also spoke of a generational disillusionment. Born in the headiest years of China’s economic boom, they grew up with more opportunities and more comforts than their parents — and also higher expectations. They were told that, with hard work and the right education, their futures were all but guaranteed.

他们还谈到了一代人的幻灭。他们出生在中国经济最繁荣的时期，成长过程中比他们的父母拥有更多的机会，生活更加舒适，也有着更高的期望。他们被告知，通过努力工作和良好的教育，他们的未来几乎是有保障的。

Now, those boom years are fading, as are many young people’s hopes — with unpredictable consequences for China and the world.

如今，那些繁荣岁月正在消逝，许多年轻人的希望也在消逝——这给中国和世界带来了不可预测的后果。

TO FIND HER ideal job, Nadia Yang shelled out more than $5,000, moved from a prosperous coastal city to her hometown and spent 20 months doing little but studying.

为了找到理想的工作，纳迪亚·杨花费了约3.5万元，从繁荣的沿海城市搬回家乡，在20个月的时间里，除了学习之外几乎什么都没做。

All for a position that paid less than half what she used to make. But that was OK, because it was a job in the government.

这一切都是为了得到一个工资还不到她以前收入一半的职位。但这不要紧，因为那是一份政府工作。

Jobs in the civil service in China are often low-paying and unglamorous. But they are seen as the epitome of job security — which appealed to Ms. Yang after the once-booming field of private tutoring, where she used to work, was suddenly wiped out by a government crackdown in 2021.

中国的公务员工作往往收入较低且乏味。但它们被视为有保障的工作的典型——这对杨女士来说很有吸引力，她曾从事的私人补习行业一度蓬勃发展，但在2021年突然被政府的打压所摧毁。

Ms. Yang was not alone: Record numbers of young Chinese have taken the civil service examination in recent years, as government crackdowns and the slowing economy have caused large-scale layoffs in the private sector.

杨女士的经历并不罕见：近年来，随着政府的打压和经济放缓导致私营部门大规模裁员，参加公务员考试的中国年轻人数量创下了历史新高。

To prepare for the exam, Ms. Yang left the city of Hangzhou, where she’d lived for two years, and moved in with her parents. After exhausting her own savings, she relied on them for money. She paid $200 for study material. She signed up for 15 exams — each city had its own — paying an additional $210 in registration fees.

为了准备考试，杨女士离开她居住了两年的杭州，搬去和父母同住。在花光了自己的积蓄后，她开始靠父母资助。她花了约1400元购买学习材料。她报名参加了15场考试（每个城市都有自己的考试）——再支付1500元的报名费。

Because China’s Covid restrictions were still in place, she also had to pay for a total of three weeks of quarantine accommodations while traveling between cities.

由于中国的新冠限制措施当时仍然存在，她还必须负担跨城市出行总共三周的隔离住宿费用。

And yet for months, Ms. Yang struggled to advance past the initial rounds.

然而几个月以来，杨女士一直苦于无法通过初试进入下一轮。

“You feel like you’ve forced yourself down a dead end,” she said.

“你会觉得自己把自己逼入了一个死胡同，”她说。

In October 2022, more than a year after she started studying, she found out she had made it to the final round for a job in the small northern city of Yanan. In preparation, she signed up for a weeklong course there on preparing for job interviews, which cost $2,300. She bought new leather shoes, makeup and clothes. And she waited — for an agonizing five months.

2022年10月，开始学习一年多后，她发现自己进入了北方小城市延安一份工作的最后一轮面试。为了做好准备，她报名参加了为期一周的面试准备课程，费用为1.6万元。她买了新皮鞋、化妆品和衣服。然后是等待——持续痛苦的五个月的等待。

In March, Ms. Yang finally had her interview and was hired by the Yanan transportation bureau the same month.

今年3月，杨女士终于通过面试，并于同月被延安市交通运输局录用。

Her monthly salary was only $420, compared with the $1,000 she had earned in Hangzhou. But she works regular hours, and doesn’t worry about being laid off. Housing and meals are covered. The peace of mind is worth it — at least for now.

她的月薪只有约3000元，而她在杭州的工资是7000元左右。但现在她工作时间正常，不用担心被解雇。住房和餐费均有补贴。内心的平静是值得的——至少现在是这样。

“Be content with what you have,” she said. “What else can you do?”

“我就是说知足常乐，”她说。“不然怎么办？”

直到最近，菲奥娜·秦一直都有自己的计划。她想考上一所好大学，然后是一所顶尖的研究生院，最后在大城市的新闻机构找到一份记者的工作。

She seemed well on her way in the fall of 2022, as graduation approached. While finishing her master’s program in Beijing, she completed several internships. She set a target of submitting applications to 100 jobs — surely enough, she thought, to net an offer.

2022年秋，随着毕业临近，似乎一切都在按计划进行。在北京攻读硕士的同时，她还完成了几份实习。她设定的目标是向100份职位递交申请，她觉得这肯定足以让她获得一份工作。

But soon, her plans started to unravel. That fall, as Covid spread widely, China imposed another round of mass lockdowns. Ms. Qin couldn’t predict whether she’d be able to leave her home the next day, let alone where she’d be in a few months.

但很快，她的计划开始崩塌。那年秋天，随着新冠病毒的广泛传播，中国实施了新一轮的大规模封锁。秦女士连第二天是否能离开家都无法预测，更不用说几个月后她会在哪里了。

Most of her job applications went unanswered, as the broader economy flailed. Ms. Qin started applying to any field she thought might take her — not just journalism but also tech, publishing houses, even retail brands.

由于经济大环境不景气，她的大部分求职申请都没有得到回复。秦女士开始申请任何她认为可能会要她的领域，不仅是新闻业，还有科技行业、出版社，甚至零售品牌。

Ms. Qin was overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness. “Submitting 100 résumés and hardly getting any response, it was terrifying,” she said.

无助感让她不知所措。她说：“你想，投一百个，没什么回复，这是很恐怖的一个事情。”

In January, finally, a Shanghai news outlet offered her an unpaid internship. She moved to the city and signed a $370-a-month lease, relying on her savings and money from her parents.

今年1月，上海一家新闻媒体终于向她提供了一份无薪实习机会。她依靠自己的积蓄和父母的资助搬到了这座城市，签下了一个月2600元的租约。

But where Ms. Qin might have previously tried to game out how to maximize her odds of staying in Shanghai — applying to other jobs, for example — she decided to focus only on the internship at hand. If it turned into a permanent job, she’d be thrilled. If not, she would figure things out then.

不过，秦女士以前可能会想办法尽可能增加留在上海的机会——比如申请其他工作——但她现在决定只专注于手头的实习。如果实习变成长期工作，她会很高兴。如果没有，她会到时候再想办法。

A few months later, she was offered a full-time position. But even now, Ms. Qin is skeptical of making any long-term plans.

几个月后，她获得了一个全职职位。但即使是现在，秦女士也对制定任何长期计划持怀疑态度。

“Life is too unpredictable,” she said. “I just want to do well in this moment.”

“有太多意外了，”她说。“现在尽量做好当下。”

LOOKING BACK, Ethan Yi thinks he had been a little entitled, or at least naive.

回想起来，伊森·易觉得自己有点自以为是，至少是太天真了。

Mr. Yi, who graduated in June 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in management, had always been told that a college education came with certain benefits. He wouldn’t need to toil as his parents had, working as vegetable wholesalers. He could expect good pay and respect.

易先生于2022年6月毕业，获得了管理学学士学位。他一直听别人说，大学学位会带来一定的好处，他不需要像父母那样辛苦地做蔬菜批发商。他可以得到高薪和尊重。

At first, his expectations seemed borne out. He landed a job at the Chinese car company Geely, earning nearly $1,000 a month, above average for a fresh grad like himself.

起初，他的期望似乎得到了证实。他在中国吉利汽车公司找到了一份工作，月薪近7000元，高于像他这样的应届毕业生的平均水平。

But when he started the role, he was assigned mostly administrative tasks, like filing expenses, that Mr. Yi considered beneath him. After five months, he quit.

但刚入职时，分配给他的主要是行政工作，比如申报费用，易先生认为这些工作配不上自己。五个月后，他辞职了。

While looking for another job, Mr. Yi applied for temporary work. His disappointment followed him. He quit after just three days as a waiter, and soon left other jobs at a hotel and an amusement park.

在寻找下一份工作期间，他做了一些临时的工作。失望随之而来。他只做了三天服务员就辞职了，不久又离开了在一家酒店和一座游乐园的工作。

“At the end of the day, I’m a college graduate,” he said. “If you want me to go serve others, I think that’s a bit too low, to be honest.”

“我好歹也是个本科生，”他说。“你让我去给别人当服务员，我觉得有点卑躬屈膝，说实话。”

Mr. Yi had run into an emerging problem in China: A college degree isn’t the golden ticket it used to be. For decades, the government has pushed, successfully, to expand university enrollment. Yet the supply of jobs that matches graduates’ qualifications has not kept pace.

易先生遭遇的是一个中国的新问题：大学文凭不再是像过去那样的敲门砖。几十年来，政府成功地推动了大学扩招。然而，与毕业生资质相匹配的工作岗位供应却没有跟上步伐。

As headlines about unemployment proliferated, though, Mr. Yi began to wonder if his expectations were the problem. Other young people working jobs that were less than ideal seemed able to tough things out.

不过，随着有关失业的新闻越来越多，易先生开始怀疑问题是不是在于自己的期望太高。其他做着不理想工作的年轻人似乎就能坚持下去。

In September, Mr. Yi decided to try his luck in Shanghai. This time, he vowed, he would make it stick, even if it meant taking jobs he once wouldn’t have considered.

去年9月，易先生决定到上海碰碰运气。他发誓，这一次他一定要坚持下去，即使这意味着要做一些他曾经不会考虑的工作。

“If others pick me, that’s enough. I’m not qualified to be picky,” he said.

“其实我有时候会想凭什么我去挑，别人挑我就算了，我没有什么太大资格去挑别人，”他说。

Two weeks after arriving, he was hired by an agricultural chemical company, for $730 a month. He rented an apartment on the outskirts of the city and threw himself into training.

两周后，他被一家农业化学公司录用，月薪5200元。他在市郊租了一套公寓，全身心投入到培训中。

“I’ll see how things go, take it slow,” he said. “Making fast money is impossible. I see that now.”

“发展怎么样就再慢慢来，”他说。“挣快钱是不可能的，我现在想到了这一点。”

PHOEBE LIU badly wanted to work at ByteDance, the Chinese tech company behind TikTok. So when she landed an interview there, she decided to go all out.

菲比·刘十分想在TikTok背后的中国科技公司字节跳动工作。于是，当她获得了在这家公司的面试时，她决定全力以赴。

She hired an online interview coach who, for $35, would give her a one-hour mock interview session and feedback.

她花250元雇了一个线上面试辅导，会给她进行一个小时的模拟面试，并给她反馈。

Many university students typically land job offers during the fall campus recruitment period. But this was ending, and Ms. Liu had nothing lined up despite sending dozens of applications. She grew so stressed that her skin broke out badly, and she visited a doctor, forking out about $70.

许多大学生通常会在秋季校园招聘期间拿到工作机会。但现在情况不同了，尽管发出了数十份简历，但刘女士一个工作都没定下来。由于压力太大，她开始严重爆痘，于是她去看了医生，花了大概500元。

The costs were adding up. She was already paying about $400 in rent for a shared bedroom in Beijing, where she was doing an internship at Xiaohongshu, another tech company. The salary there was about $20 a day — barely enough to cover half of one online coaching session.

花出去的钱越来越多。在北京，她在另一家科技公司小红书实习，为在这个城市一间与他人合住的房间本来就要支付大约3000元房租。实习工资为大约150元一天——几乎不够线上面试辅导费用的一半。

But Ms. Liu was desperate. When she advanced to the second round of the ByteDance interview, she paid for another coaching session. Then she advanced again — hence, another session.

但刘女士很是迫切。进入了字节跳动第二轮面试后，她又花钱买了一次辅导。然后她又进了下一轮面试——于是，又买了一次辅导。

“You’ll do anything you can to buy yourself some security and peace of mind,” she said.

“人就会在这个时候想尽一切办法，买一个保底和心安，”她说。

Ms. Liu ultimately did not get the ByteDance job. She took time off from her internship to prepare for other interviews, forgoing a half day’s pay each time. She visited the doctor again, bringing her medical bills to about $140.

刘女士最终没能获得字节跳动的工作。为了准备别的面试，她需要跟实习单位请假，每次都要放弃半天的工资。她又去看了医生，导致她在医疗方面花的钱已经达到了约1000元。

Finally, in December, Ms. Liu received a full-time offer out of her internship at Xiaohongshu. The salary was above average, at nearly $3,000 a month.

最终在12月，刘女士凭借着她在小红书的实习获得了一份全职工作。她拿到的薪水高于平均值，年薪约为25万元。

Still, Ms. Liu was rattled by how hard it was to get her first full-time job. Other traditional benchmarks of adulthood, like buying a house, felt more out of reach than ever, especially in a city as expensive as Beijing. While her father had succeeded as a businessman as China’s economy boomed, she doubted that she would be as upwardly mobile.

但找到自己第一份全职工作是如此之难，令刘女士感到心有余悸。例如买房等其他成年生活的传统指标感觉更难以企及了，尤其是在北京这个如此昂贵的城市。尽管她经商的父亲在中国经济繁荣发展时颇为成功，但她对自己是否能像父亲一样向上流动感到怀疑。

“Even if I work my hardest for 10 or 20 years, will I really make as much as them?” she said of her parents’ generation. “Now you can’t accomplish the same things through your own hard work.”

“我想，我自己奋斗10年20年，真的会变得那么有钱吗？”她谈到自己的父母一辈时说。“现在你靠努力或者什么的，你绝对不可能这样去实现。”

TSUKI JIN grew up in a small city in inland China, but had long wanted to experience life outside. And in April, she decided to make that dream happen — tough job market or not.

苏琪·金在中国内陆一个小城长大，但一直都想体验外面的生活。4月，她决定实现这一梦想——不管外面好不好找工作。

Ms. Jin, who asked to be identified by her family name and a nickname, quit the human resources job she had worked for two years and moved to Shanghai, with nothing new lined up and roughly $700 in savings.

金女士要求文中只用她的姓氏和别名。她辞去了已做了两年的人力资源工作，在下一份工作还没着落且仅有约5000元积蓄的情况下搬到了上海。

“I think it’s not good for young people to be too comfortable,” she said. “It’s good to go out and see things.”

“我觉得年轻人不应该过得太舒适，”她说。“去外面看看挺好的。”

Ms. Jin’s path shows how some young Chinese are able to hold on to their ambitions: being willing to compromise on almost everything else.

金女士走的路体现出一些年轻中国人是如何坚守自己的抱负的：他们愿意在其他几乎所有事情上妥协。

She quickly accepted another human resources job, even though it paid only $700 a month, barely higher than what she had earned at home, where the cost of living was much lower. She hunted for part-time jobs, working weekends as a cashier at a games arcade.

她迅速接受了另一份人力资源工作，尽管那份工作工资每月只有约5000元，只比她在老家挣得多一点，而老家的生活成本要低得多。她找了兼职工作，周末在游戏厅做收银员。

Ms. Jin cut down on expenses wherever possible. Her primary goal was to stay in Shanghai. Everything else was secondary, including what she looked for in a job.

金女士尽可能地减少支出。她的主要目标是留在上海。其他都是次要的，包括对工作的要求。

“My requirements aren’t high,” she said. “There are a lot of people who are more accomplished.”

“我的要求不高，”她说。“有许多人要优秀得多。”

Her pragmatism made it possible for her to keep taking new risks. She quit her first job after several weeks to look for a higher-paying one, because she knew that she would have no problem turning back to less glamorous work if needed.

她的实用主义让她一直有底气冒新风险。她在第一份工作做了几周后就辞职，以寻找一份薪水更高的工作，因为她知道如果有必要，她完全可以回去做不那么光鲜的工作。

About a month after that, she switched again to her current job, which pays $1,270 a month — double what she’d earned at home.

大约一个月后，她又换了现在这份工资约为每月9000元的工作——比她在老家挣的多了一倍。

Even with her new job, though, Ms. Jin is already thinking ahead to her next adventure. After a few years in Shanghai, she wants to try other cities.

即便是有了这份新工作，金女士还是已经在提前思考她的下一个冒险了。在上海工作几年后，她想试试其他城市。

“It’s all life experience,” she said.

“都是人生经验，”她说。