Leon Li used to play a low-key but indispensable role at one of China’s biggest tech giants.
As administrative manager, she worked 24 hours a day to schedule meetings, prepare documents and provide all the necessary support to her bosses.
But in February she left the company, giving up a stable career and a comfortable salary to
something a little less stressful – cleaning houses.
“Every morning when the alarm went off, all I could see was my dull future,” she told CNN, reflecting on her office job.
Li, 27, is part of a growing base of Chinese workers swapping high-pressure office jobs for flexible blue-collar work.
Many of them worked for some of the biggest companies in the country.
But these companies are slowly losing their appeal as China’s economy faces headwinds, including a real estate crisisdecline in foreign investment and falling consumption.
China’s economy grew 4.7% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2024, missing economists’ expectations and marking the weakest growth since the first quarter of last year, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on Monday.
Long working hours and dwindling resources have led employees like Li to rethink whether it’s worth trading their time and health for higher wages.
“I like cleaning. As living standards improve (across the country), demand for cleaning services also increases with an ever-expanding market,” said Li, who lives in the central Chinese metropolis of Wuhan.
But the most important thing is that she feels happier.
“The change this brings is that my head no longer feels dizzy. I feel less mental pressure. And I’m full of energy every day,” she said.
Workers reject ‘996’ culture
Li is not the only white-collar worker who has found a better work-life balance by swapping an office job for manual work.
Alice Wang, 30, who uses a pseudonym for privacy reasons, worked for one of China’s leading live-streaming e-commerce platforms, earning 700,000 yuan ($96,310) a year.
But she quit her job in April, moving from Hangzhou, a picturesque tech hub, to the more relaxed city of Chengdu, where rent is cheaper, to look after pets.
China’s notorious “996” work culture – the practice of working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week, common among technology companies, startups and other private companies in the country – has been a pressure factor for many employees who quit.
Wang remembers feeling physically fragile and “very lifeless and stagnant” at her old job, when she dedicated most of her time to work.
But she feels different now.
“The feeling of growth is relatively good,” she said, adding that she is undergoing training in personal care and has ambitions to one day open her own store. “That’s the long-term plan,” she said.
The trend of moving from professional to manual jobs comes amid growing demand for blue-collar workers, according to Chinese recruitment platform Zhaopin.
In its latest survey released in June, the platform found that the demand for workers
Jobs – such as food delivery drivers, truck drivers, waiters and technicians – increased 3.8 times in the first quarter of the year compared to the same period in 2019.
Demand for delivery drivers grew faster, by 800%, after three years of Covid-related lockdowns gave rise to a takeaway culture.
And workers’ wages also rose, attracting more people to jobs they might previously have avoided.
The explosion of online shopping has seen the average monthly salary of a delivery person increase 45.3% since 2019, from 5,581 yuan ($768) to 8,109 yuan ($1,116), according to the survey.
For some college graduates, however, taking a manual job was not their first choice.
As the economy slows, it becomes more difficult to find jobs for recent graduates in an increasingly competitive corporate job market.
The survey also found that the number of people under 25 applying for blue-collar jobs in the first quarter of this year increased by 165% compared to the same period in 2019.
China’s unemployment rate for 16-24 year olds reached a staggering 21.3% in June 2023, according to the NBS, which subsequently suspended reporting the value for months while adjusting its methodology.
Authorities brought up the data in January this year – excluding from the figure some 62 million students, whose main task, they said, should be studying rather than looking for a job.
In recent months, the unemployment rate for future workers aged between 16 and 24 has fluctuated between 14.2% and 15.3%, according to the DNE.
Macquarie economists Larry Hu and Zhang Yuxiao wrote in a research report last year that China’s services sector, private enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises used to be the main sources of employment for young workers. However, they were hit hard by weak consumer demand.
David Goodman, director of the Center for China Studies at the University of Sydney, said there was
There has been a mismatch between the type of graduates universities produce and what the market really needs.
He said China’s economy is shifting towards advanced technology, green technology and service industries, while university education still mainly focuses on industry and public service, areas that are outdated or saturated.
“(There is) a fundamental problem if the higher education system has not adjusted or has not been
adjusted to face rapid changes in the structure of the economy”, he explained.
Pressure of another kind
But some question whether blue-collar work is really the stress-free refuge that people like Li and Wang imagine it to be.
A recent video, widely circulated on Chinese social media, demonstrated how things can go wrong. The clip showed a barista in Shanghai losing his temper over a customer threatening to make a complaint against him.
In a fit of rage, he threw coffee powder at her, instantly becoming the center of a cafe drama that sparked an online debate about the challenges service sector workers face.
Complaints or negative online reviews can be disastrous for stores and restaurants in China, as many consumers religiously follow recommendations on popular social media platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin, China’s version of TikTok.
The threat of a negative review pressures low-wage workers to avoid doing
anything that might draw negative attention to the company.
Some internet users denounced the barista’s bad manners. But many more sympathized with him.
“To begin with, the salary is low, much less having to face complaints. It’s better to give up (when you are) under pressure from the company and customers,” wrote one online commenter.
But for Li, who works just six hours a day cleaning houses as a freelancer, her experience has been positive.
She enjoys connecting with her clients and says each cleaning session makes her feel like more than just a business transaction.
“Customers will carefully pour water for us to drink. When it’s time to eat, they order food for us, bring us food and constantly remind us to drink water and rest,” she said.
So far, she said she doesn’t regret quitting her office job.
“After a tiring day, I can go home, eat and do what I like without any extra mental pressure,” she said.
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