The number of is increasing of Chinese graduates leaving China’s “big cities” to return to their places of origin due to the crisis in the labor market.

According to state-run Chinese media, nearly half of graduates now leave China’s megacities for lack of employment within the first semester after graduation.

Under the weight ofof rising house prices and the economic slowdown, unemployed graduates are leaving the cities that have traditionally been a springboard for economic and social advancement in China. To save money, some are even forced to share their bed with a stranger.

China’s youth unemployment rate soared to a record 21.3% in June, as job offers during the job search season appeared to shrink, while regulatory restrictions hit the real estate, technology and education sectors.

In June, the official statistics office announced that more than 6 million young people are unemployed.

47 percent of graduates returned to their hometowns six months after graduation in 2022, up from 43 percent in 2018, according to the state-run China News Service, which cited private sector research.

The numbers vary from region to region: 59% of graduates in developed eastern China return home, compared to 44% of graduates in western China and just 24% in the deindustrialized zone of northeast China.

Rising rents are also pushing young people back home. Among China’s “first-tier” cities, rent increases in Beijing were 5 percent from December to June, and 2.8 percent in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, according to the Xinhua news agency.

In search of homoclinics

But not everyone gives up.

After sending out ten resumes every month to financial firms, Joyce Zhang, who earned her master’s degree in 2022 in financial engineering, has yet to find a job in Beijing, but she won’t be returning home just yet.

“I thought about going back to Inner Mongolia to work since the financial sector has not been doing well lately. But I think I still want to try,” he told Reuters.

Her parents pay the rent of 2,600 yuan ($361) for a 12 square meter room with a shared kitchen and bathroom.

The authorities implement measures to support young people looking for work and housing, more or less inspired.

For example, in an area of ​​Hangzhou in east China’s Zhejiang province, free nursing home housing is offered on the condition that residents spend 10 or more hours a month with the elderly and pay 300 yuan for utilities.

To keep down the cost of living by extending their stay in Chinese cities in the hope of finding work, some young people share their beds with foreigners. Xiaohongshu and WeChat (Chinese Instagram) are full of “singles wanted” ads.

One of them is looking for a roommate to share a bed in a room “with a huge balcony” in Beijing. The rent is 750 yuan ($104).