Forwarded from 📡Guardians of Hong Kong
‘I’m Very Anxious’: China’s #Lockdowns Leave Millions Out of Work
//Migrant workers and recent college graduates have been hit hardest by shuttered factories, closed construction sites and an anemic job market.
As China battles its worst coronavirus outbreaks, its uncompromising determination to eliminate infections has left millions unable to work. Stringent lockdowns, hitting city after city, have forced factories and businesses to shut, sometimes for weeks, including in some of the country’s most important economic centers.
Two groups have been especially hard-hit: migrant workers — the roughly 280 million laborers who travel from rural areas to cities to work in sectors such as manufacturing and construction — and recent college graduates. Nearly 11 million college students, a record, are expected to graduate this year...
Yang Jiwei, a 21-year-old from Anhui Province, worked as a waiter in Shanghai when the lockdown began. His residence, shared with four other people, had no kitchen supplies, so they could not cook the few packages of vegetables and meat that local officials had provided. He had been eating a dwindling supply of instant noodles...
But the official unemployment figures are widely considered an undercount. They do not capture many migrant workers, and they also count people as unemployed only if they are able to start working within two weeks. That would exclude people under extended lockdowns or the growing numbers of young people deferring job searches...//
Read the full article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/business/china-shanghai-covid-lockdown-economy.html
Source: New York Times #May5
#Unemployment #Discontent #Pandemic #ShanghaiLockdown #Covid19
//Migrant workers and recent college graduates have been hit hardest by shuttered factories, closed construction sites and an anemic job market.
As China battles its worst coronavirus outbreaks, its uncompromising determination to eliminate infections has left millions unable to work. Stringent lockdowns, hitting city after city, have forced factories and businesses to shut, sometimes for weeks, including in some of the country’s most important economic centers.
Two groups have been especially hard-hit: migrant workers — the roughly 280 million laborers who travel from rural areas to cities to work in sectors such as manufacturing and construction — and recent college graduates. Nearly 11 million college students, a record, are expected to graduate this year...
Yang Jiwei, a 21-year-old from Anhui Province, worked as a waiter in Shanghai when the lockdown began. His residence, shared with four other people, had no kitchen supplies, so they could not cook the few packages of vegetables and meat that local officials had provided. He had been eating a dwindling supply of instant noodles...
But the official unemployment figures are widely considered an undercount. They do not capture many migrant workers, and they also count people as unemployed only if they are able to start working within two weeks. That would exclude people under extended lockdowns or the growing numbers of young people deferring job searches...//
Read the full article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/business/china-shanghai-covid-lockdown-economy.html
Source: New York Times #May5
#Unemployment #Discontent #Pandemic #ShanghaiLockdown #Covid19
NY Times
‘I’m Very Anxious’: China’s Lockdowns Leave Millions Out of Work
Migrant workers and recent college graduates have been hit hardest by shuttered factories, closed construction sites and an anemic job market.