

Faltering Economy in China Dims Job Prospects for Graduates - wallflower
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/17/business/global/faltering-economy-in-china-dims-job-prospects-for-graduates.html?hp

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tokenadult
From the article: "One response, endorsed by the State Council, is to urge
more graduates to take jobs at small, private companies. But a generation of
people who grew up under the government’s 'one child' policy has proved risk-
averse and slow to join or set up new companies.

"'I would not work for private companies, that is not secure — only state-
owned ones,' Ms. Yan said."

That search for what was called during the 1970s "the iron rice bowl"\--a
secure job in a state-controlled organization--makes me wonder how much more
innovation can be promoted in China's economy. Desiring that kind of security
in employment would never make a Silicon Valley happen.

~~~
hkmurakami
Whenever we see very different behavior in other countries compared to that of
our own, we should recognize that those people have most likely made that
decision for very rational reasons. The decision may be grounded in reasons
ranging from monetary to status-driven reasons, but people perceive their
environment accurately and made the best decisions for themselves and their
families. People in general are not blindly dumb or obtuse. The vast majority
of the time, they are making sound decisions for their current and future
prospects.

I used to think that the "US Way" was the best bar none no matter what the
local situation or culture. Working in a different country and then observing
the social and corporate dynamics from afar has made me realize that I was
wrong.

If people in China desire government jobs, it really does mean that that _is_
the best option for them.

~~~
chii
this line of reasoning is basically what leads to the tragedy of the commons,
or problems such as the paradox of thrift
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift)),
where everyone does what is best for themselves (which is fine in my books),
but then leads to the overall decline of the system. The gov't needs to
forcast these sorts of situations, and counter it before it becomes a problem.

~~~
hkmurakami
I personally agree that it's fine for people to pursue their selfish means.
Life is short and they have every right to maximize their ends, even if it
means that the whole will come crumbling down in the not so distant future.

Governments often ask their citizens to "chip in" and help them right the
ship. IMHO such governments are usually inept and each person is honestly
better off pursuing an every man for himself strategy.

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kenster07
So giving a large swath of your population more education doesn't magically
stimulate economic growth. Hm, where have we seen this pattern before?

~~~
chii
the state should be funding huge R&D projects with these educated individuals,
instead of priming them for "work in the industry". Think hardcore nuclear
research to find methods for fusion, or better energy production. Think
genetics research, think materials sciences and more efficient chemical
processes, think hardcore robotics.

With this goal in mind, the education system should be taylored for basic
sciences, and not on "practical" skills that could be learnt on the job. This
would naturally gravitate the ciruculum towards teaching creativity, problem
solving, not knowledge aquisition.

TLDR; i think they've been doing it all wrong, and wasted the time "educating"
these now jobless people.

~~~
dredmorbius
R&D also has diminishing returns to scale. It may well also _lag_ rather than
_lead_ economic growth.

See Joseph Tainter and Nicholas Rescher.
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sres.1057/abstrac...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sres.1057/abstract)

For the Chinese: much of what they need has already been invented elsewhere
(so IP appropriation _is_ a highly rational activity). They need to be able to
apply it.

Their bigger problem is going to be in providing energy, cleaning up
pollution, and assuring other resources (water is also becoming very highly
constrained in China) for a very large population. One that's much _less_
large than it could have been, but large all the same.

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thatcherclay
I would love to hear the perspective of a native chinese person here - a
little hard to take the New York Times as an unbiased source given the tension
there lately.

~~~
roy_x
A native Chinese is in :-)

It is always tough for new graduates to find a good job in recent years. Given
the housing cost got really high in big cities like
Beijing/Shanghai/Guangzhou, there is a so called "flee-away-from-
tier-1-cities-campaign" word made up by new graduates.

When I graduated a decade ago, there are a lot of proud new graduates whom
sincerely believed that they have a bright future ahead. But nowadays, most
young people seems not thinking so anymore.

It is difficult to change your social status by education and hard-working.
That is something really bad and it is more than faltering economy of this
year, it is about the meta-rules of how society running. Most of the
traditional Chinese dynasties failed because same kind of problems.

~~~
yourapostasy
Thanks for the comment from "the inside".

A note for folks who have not been to China before about the sheer scale of
the "Tier 1/2/3" cities talked about here. When someone mentions Tier 3 in
China, those are cities that are considered big enough to warrant calling a
city, but too numerous to know all of them off the top of your head. A Tier 1
city for an American is like NYC, San Francisco, Seattle, _etc._ For a
resident of the UK, Tier 1 = London; France = Paris; you get the idea.

But here is the catch. In America, a Tier 3 city can be in a top-100 list by
population, but still be relatively ho-hum and if not unknown, not exactly in
the headlines every day. Take the smallest 10 cities in a top-100 list, like
Chula Vista, CA, and arbitrarily draw the line for Tier 3 there. These cities
barely crack 200,000 in population. In China, I found out Tier 3 "ho-hum"
cities (rank 90-100 by population) have no fewer than 600,000 population. That
blew my mind when I learned that, and put China's rural-to-city migration into
perspective.

Now consider this young work force migrating en masse to Tier 2 and Tier 3
cities due to pricing pressures in Tier 1 cities. If they have a critical mass
of the right entrepreneurial factors in place, that's like over 100 Austin, TX
(the brightest growth story the US can point to at the moment) popping up
nearly simultaneously within the next 5-10 years. Pretty exciting times ahead.

~~~
roy_x
Thank you for the background explanation and the optimistic view of China's
future.

I must admit that I am a little bit exaggerated in my original reply.

~~~
waps
You got to wonder if 7% growth (double what the better western economies are
doing) is really such a bad situation to be in.

------
danso
> _The Chinese government is worried, saying that the problem could affect
> social stability, and it has ordered schools, government agencies and state-
> owned enterprises to hire more graduates at least temporarily to help
> relieve joblessness. “The only thing that worries them more than an
> unemployed low-skilled person is an unemployed educated person,” said Shang-
> Jin Wei, a Columbia Business School economist._

Tough situation...subsidizing an excess middle class can't be great in the
long term. But what's the alternative? Order people to go work in the fields?

~~~
skylan_q
The damage caused by economic engineering leaves no good alternatives.

~~~
contingencies
To be fair I think the whole world is facing the reality of increased
efficiency requiring less bodies.

~~~
maxharris
People are more than bodies - they all have minds, too.

While the need for physical labor will continue to decrease, many things that
require a human mind to do will still be in demand. The real question is, will
we vote to allow those that choose to apply their minds the chance to actually
try their ideas in reality?

Look at what's happening to Airbnb. What kind of message does that send -
"come up with a great new idea, one that provides value to hundreds of
thousands, work as hard as you can for years, and watch it get crushed by
regulations?" _That_ is the biggest threat to everyone that wants to earn a
better life for themselves in the future, not the "rise of the machines,"
which has only made us more productive, richer.

Regulations are a major reason why everyone seems to focus on doing tech
startups that don't get too far outside of computing. It's not just a random
trend. When we let the best and brightest do their best, a lot more wealth
will be created, and you'll see the standard of living start to increase
again.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
With respect, the other reason tech-startups don't go too far outside
computing are because that's what we know. Most hackers might have _some_
domain expertise outside computing, but usually not enough to start a complete
business in their secondary field of knowledge.

~~~
bad_user
I do not agree. Most hackers can learn the details of any domain-specific
knowledge they want and many of them do so, especially those that are working
in consulting. To be a good consultant and earn a reasonable monthly revenue,
you have to able able to absorb domain-specific knowledge in a matter of days,
or even hours and many people do so.

The reason for why we aren't going outside computing is precisely because we'd
have to deal with stupid regulations and barriers that have been placed to not
upset the status quo, whereas computing and the Internet is the most
unregulated industry by far.

This is why those in power try their best to regulate the Internet and
computing and why we get so upset whenever they try.

