China's youth turn to Africa amid record high unemployment at home

The youth unemployment rate in China has hit a record high in recent months, prompting some young people to turn their attention to Africa.

An article in China Youth Daily on 19 July featured two recent graduates. One is a young man named Zhang Yang - after sending out more than 1,600 resumes online and another 50 in person, he finally secured a job in Africa with an annual salary of 200,000 RMB (US$27,800).

The other is Li Weiwei, a female student majoring in accounting, who had trouble finding a job in China and so decided to find one in Africa.

Job-seeking in Africa has soared. On Zhihu, the question "Are you willing to work in Africa for an annual salary of 300,000 RMB?" has gained 21 million views, and topics related to working in Africa have over 260 million views.

Posts related to Africa on Chinese social media platforms are often about making money. On Xiaohongshu, a post titled "Post-00 earns her first 400,000 RMB in Africa" by a 22-year-old woman described how she earned 400,000 RMB in two years of working in Africa.

A video blogger named "Little Bell Johnny" (小钟Johnny), who has worked in Africa for five years, bought his first house in Chengdu, Sichuan, for 957,370 RMB during his trip back to China in January.

Johnny has made several videos about young people making money in Africa, including a young woman who sells cars in Africa and earns hundreds of thousands of RMB annually; a young man from Shandong who quit school to be his own boss selling secondhand goods in Africa and bought a house and car at the age of 20; and a young man from Hubei who quit his job to start an electronics business in Africa and now earns a million RMB annually.

As a result of these online examples of money-making, Africa seems to be a paradise for many young Chinese people to quickly achieve financial freedom.

There are generally three categories of Chinese companies in Africa: high-tech enterprises, state-owned enterprises engaged in infrastructure, and private enterprises involved in trade.

The salary for expatriates in Africa consists of two main components. There is the base salary, which is comparable to the salaries for the same positions in China, while the more substantial component is the overseas compensation - the more dangerous the location, the higher the compensation.

Overall, the salary for fresh graduates in Africa can be two to three times that of similar positions in China. Moreover, companies typically provide board and accommodation, while the local scene lacks consumption and entertainment choices, so most of the money earned in Africa can be saved.

Apart from making money, Africa also offers opportunities for people to enter top-tier companies. A counsellor from a non-elite business school in China - not belonging to Project 985 or Project 211 for top universities - told China Youth Daily that one male student from their cohort was hired by a leading Chinese company in Africa. If not for the opportunity to work in Africa, the students from the university might not have even passed the resume screening process.

While the entry requirements to top Chinese companies in Africa are relatively low, the increasing number of applicants has made it more difficult to get in.

Li Weiwei told China Youth Daily that excluding small, new companies with fewer than 100 employees, there are only around 50 large Chinese state-owned enterprises, listed companies, well-known foreign companies, and "endorsed" companies in Africa. She applied to all of them but has yet to receive any responses.

And if one chooses to work for small private companies in Africa, they need to spend time and effort verifying the company's credibility.

Zhang Yang, who received several job offers from foreign trade companies, said that some of these companies sell clothes or cars but do not look legitimate, and their registration information indicates that they only have a dozen or so employees, so he rejected their offers.

Zhang also checks whether a company has an official website, enough information online and any negative reviews on social media. After careful consideration, he eventually chose a listed company in Ghana.

Jobseekers can also go through agencies, but the jobs they offer are mostly for blue-collar workers, and these agencies usually charge 8,000-10,000 RMB in fees, with some even being fraudulent ones. In 2017, The Paper reported that a farmer from Shandong was promised a job in Africa, but after paying 13,000 RMB, his trip was cancelled multiple times by the agency, which cited changes in the company as the cause.

Even after arriving in Africa, jobseekers face new challenges in terms of healthcare and personal safety.

According to an article in June on Phoenix Net (凤凰网), Chen Long, who works for a Chinese internet operations company in Africa, said that many of his colleagues have contracted malaria. In a report from The Sixth Tone, a 23-year-old woman working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been infected with malaria five times.

In 2015, The Paper published a map showing the locations where Chinese overseas employees were attacked - over 60% occurred in Africa, with South Africa, Cameroon, Nigeria and Ghana being high-risk areas for Chinese employees. In March this year, nine Chinese miners were killed in an attack on a gold mine in the Central African Republic, another reminder of the risks of working in Africa.

Chen Hui works in Angola at a camp-like industrial park surrounded by a towering fence made of containers. He is assigned to live in a container home about 7.5 metres long and 2 metres wide. The air conditioning in the metal room has to be set to 16 degrees Celsius at noon every day to stay comfortable.

Due to the precedent of violent incidents, the guards at Chen's industrial park are armed with guns. As employees are not allowed to freely leave the premises, Chen rarely sets foot in the local malls. But he has no other choice because "freedom" entails "forgoing protection".

China's trade with Africa started in 1950, but it was limited to a small number of nations like Egypt and Morocco because most African nations had not yet achieved independence.

Since reform and opening up, China-Africa trade surged and entered a period of rapid growth following the initiation of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in 2000. During Chinese President Xi Jinping's first visit to Africa in 2013, he put forward the concept of a China-Africa "community of common destiny". Five years later, the two sides reached a consensus on the Belt and Road Initiative.

Over the past 20 years, China-Africa trade surged multiple times from US$12.4 billion in 2002 to US$282 billion in 2022.

The number of Chinese enterprises in Africa nearly doubled over the past decade, from over 2,000 in 2012 to over 3,000 in 2022, according to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce. McKinsey & Company estimates that the actual number of Chinese-funded enterprises in Africa may have already exceeded 10,000.

According to a report by Phoenix Net, the number of Chinese enterprises in the more than 20 China-Africa joint industrial parks alone has already exceeded 3,500, with 150,000 Chinese working in the industrial parks. In an article published in 2013, The Economist pointed out that there were already over a million Chinese in Africa at the time.

The inflection point for Africa's recruitment came in 2021. A recruitment manager at a company in Algeria told Sixth Tone that companies had struggled to hire before 2021 due to the pandemic; however, the number of applicants increased by 80% since the end of 2021.

An employee of an overseas recruitment website in China also said that the number of fresh graduates looking for overseas jobs has slowly risen since 2021, and in particular this year.

The China Youth Daily noted that those who are more inclined to find overseas jobs are fresh graduates who were unable to find jobs during the spring and autumn recruitment season in China. Many of them came from universities that did not belong to Project 985 or Project 211.

Video blogger Johnny came from a rural area and does not have a good family background. He said in a video posted on 14 July that Africa gives people like him a chance.

Youths like Johnny, who went to Africa a few years ago when China was struggling to hire due to the pandemic, have accumulated savings that has even allowed some of them to buy a house in Chengdu. But with China's worsening unemployment situation, Africa is also expected to be more "involuted" (neijuan, 内卷).

Chen, who lives in the industrial park, took leave to return to China in April this year. He initially had no desire to go back to Africa, but after sending his resume to roughly 500 local Chinese companies and receiving no responses, he has begun to look for ways to do so.

Momo, who graduated with a Master's degree from a Project 985 university in Guangzhou in July last year, had never prioritised working in Africa. But after experiencing the civil servant fever and recruitment drives at private enterprises, she realised that a job in Africa was better than having no job at all.

Zhu Yuying, who also graduated last year, only managed to find a job with a starting salary of 90,000 RMB per year after sending out 70 resumes to local Chinese enterprises. He chanced upon an opportunity in Africa on social media, and landed a job with a starting salary of 240,000 RMB per year just a few days after he submitted an application.

Although Africa offers Chinese youths employment opportunities, Africa itself is also facing a shortage of jobs.

Based on data from Project Syndicate, in the next 30 years, Africa will see a whopping 20 million youths enter the workforce every year. By 2050, Africa's youth population is expected to reach 840 million.

China's unemployment rate among young people ages 16 to 24 reached a record high of 21.3% in June, with 11.58 million college students expected to graduate in 2023. At a time when millions of youths are fighting to get to the other side of the river on a single-plank bridge, Africa gave some of them the option of swimming across the river.

But no matter how many opportunities there are in Africa, it can't bring China's entire jobless graduate army to the other side of the river. Besides, in the next couple of decades, Africa will also have to absorb its own workforce. In the face of China's current unemployment problem that desperately needs an antidote, Africa is but a temporary painkiller at best.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as "非洲能解中国青年就业之急？".

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