: Send 300,000 unemployed young people to the countryside for two to three years to find work. Guangdong, the manufacturing powerhouse that abuts Hong Kong, said last month it will help college graduates and young entrepreneurs to find work in villages. It also encouraged rural youth to return to the countryside to look for jobs there.
“Chinese students, exhausted by pandemic lockdowns and concerned about China’s ever-evolving model of state capitalism, are beginning to realize that a degree may not improve their social position, nor result in some other guaranteed benefit,” said Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “So, not only are Chinese students overeducated to meet China’s workforce needs today, they increasingly believe that such skills will not be valued tomorrow.