September 18, 2024 • 17 mins
China’s drive to upgrade its struggling economy has left millions of people facing job losses or pay cuts, fueling an existential crisis among some of its best and brightest workers.
On today's Big Take Asia Podcast, host K. Oanh Ha talks to Bloomberg's Lulu Chen about the impact Xi Jinping’s push is having on professionals, from banking to tech, and what this anxiety could mean for the outlook of the world’s second-largest economy.
Read more:
China’s CICC Demotes Senior Bankers, Cuts Pay to Slash Costs
Further listening:
Why China’s Investment Bankers Are Breaking Up With Capitalism
What Does China’s Economic Slowdown Mean For the Communist Party?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. It's one am and
the streets in Shanghai are relatively empty. Thomas Wu, who's
a father and a husband, is out riding his bicycle
alone under the dim street lights. The night wind envelops him,
(00:23):
just like the stress he can't shake off.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
He's working in state finance sector, which is experiencing a
salary cap and you know his pay has just been
cut by twenty percent at work, He's facing this uncertain future.
Doesn't know when or how long he can hold his
job for.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Wu got into an argument with his wife after returning
home late from work. She was frustrated teaching their six
year old math, something Wu wasn't sure really mattered anymore.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
He's wondering, what is the point of pushing our kids
so hard when jobs have become meaningless and efforts are
no longer tied to your pay your salary.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Lu lu Chin is Bloomberg's editor on Asia Investing. Her
team talked to Wu, who didn't want us to record
his voice, but was willing to share his frustrations. He
told Bloomberg that the career turn he's now facing has
upended the life he had planned for himself and his family.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
As a manager of a big state owned firm, he
enjoyed a good lifestyle. His kids are in international school,
which is the new homemark for upper middle class life
in China. He also had the luxury car, and now
all of that is being taken away.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
What's happening to Wu is part of a major policy
shift underway in China, where President Shei Jinping is actively
reshaping the world's second largest economy.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
The industries that are experiencing the most drastic changes include finance's, internet,
and real estate. And these were all important growth drivers
and job creators in the past, and now they're all
cast to drift.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
That policy shift, along with the job losses and pay
cuts it brings, is fueling an existential crisis among some
of the best and the brightest workers in China.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
They no longer see the era of working long hours
taking big risks. There's very little that they can do,
which is why people are referring it to the garbage
time in history.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Welcome to The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Wanha.
Every week we take you inside some of the world's
biggest and most powerful economies and the markets tycoons and
businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today on the
show How one of China's biggest policy shifts is leaving
a generation of professionals feeling a drift, and what happens
(02:59):
to a country when many of its brightest and most
ambitious citizens have their dreams crushed. The sectors of the
Chinese economy that the government now wants to rein in
employ a huge number of people in China.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
There's two hundred million people who work in white collar jobs,
and that's almost the population of Brazil if you broke
it down by sector. Finance alone had eight million people
property at its peak, if you include the supply chain
and construction workers, that provided jobs to one hundred million people.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Up until recently, these industries flourished with a strong labor
force and robust foreign investments, and Lulu says they were
part of an era where being rich was glorious and
entrepreneurs were celebrated.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
It was an error where people like Jack mo for sure,
was highly respected. He would go to conferences and young
people would chase him across the venue, hoping to get
a word of wisdom and learn about how he achieved
success in life. Now that error is gone, it's no
(04:11):
longer glorious to be rich.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
But now these industries have fallen out of favor in China,
and President Xijinping has said he wants to move the
country towards what he calls high quality growth golglen faja
gog golglen faja. Bloomberg went through the speeches last year
and found the phrase pop up at least one hundred
(04:34):
and twenty eight times, nearly double dimensions in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
That is the new mantra right now, high quality growth,
not high speed. So these industries, as finance, consumer, tech,
and property are out of favor. I think you could
say that the Communist Party has always been skeptical of finance,
viewing it as a way to enrich a few people
at the expense of the working class and fermenting instability
(05:02):
that has marred the US. And even though it's communist routs,
China has a high wealth disparity. A lot of policies
are aimed at tackling those issues.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
So if she wants to shift resources and tension away
from the banking and tech real estate sectors, where does
he want to redirect these resources?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
To paging is dubbed the new threes, so it's evs,
batteries and solar panels. Bloomberg Economics estimated that the proportion
of GDP from these sectors will swell to twenty three percent.
The high tech sector is also estimated to account for
nineteen percent of GDP by twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
As a result in the shift to high quality growth,
many people have lost their jobs. In real estate alone,
the collapse has tossed some half a million people out
of work in the three years through twenty twenty three.
That's according to data firm Korean Chiku. In the internet sector,
Ali Baba alone shrunk their headcount by roughly twenty thousand
(06:10):
last year, and Lulu says, even if you're lucky enough
to keep your job, you might not be able to
keep the same paycheck.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Look at CCC, one of China's largest investment banks. They
caught compensation for senior bankers by more than forty percent
and also the staff have been told to avoid wearing
luxury goods and no more business class.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
And some employees are even being asked to hand over
money they were already paid.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, some people have been told to pay back their bonuses.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
You basically have to give them back money that you've
already earned and have probably already spent.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yes, yes, which is why people are selling their cars.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Oh man, that must really hurt.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Lulu and her team talked to more than a dozen
people across the growth sectors that had been high flying finance,
tech and real estate. Many said they're now under mounting pressure.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Many highlighted the stress that they felt brought on by
these salary cuts, escalating scrutiny of expenses, also the sting
of being shamed on social media were their affluent lifestyles.
One of the people that we talked to Sharon's Howe,
who is an executive at a mutual fund, and she
(07:26):
also sold her car of Portia and she says that
sleeping pills are her best friends these days.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
All of these changes, the job cuts, pay cuts, and
the clawbacks are taking a toll on the mental health
of many workers in China that was captured in a
poll of sixty thousand.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
There was a recent poll by this consulting firm, tinancing Ly,
and they found that anxiety and depression were some of
the top concerns for people in China right now. Students
and workers, and finance and tech were the majority of
clients seeking mental health support.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
After the break. How will workers left behind manage as
economy moves forward, and what will the labor disruption mean
for the Chinese government. China's pivot from high speed growth
(08:28):
to high quality growth has potentially left millions of people
unemployed in the middle of their careers. But there are
promises of growth in new sectors like evs and solar panels.
So I wanted to know will the growth of these
new sectors make up for the losses in other industries
of the economy.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
It will create jobs, it will create growth, but it's
probably not going to be jobs for this batch of people,
this generation of people, because they're all in their mid
thirties and forties. They're not in stem subjects that are
needed for the high quality growth in chip industries that
(09:10):
are in favor right now. So this generation of people,
they face the danger of being cast a drift.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
And how difficult is it when white collar workers in
their thirties and forties lose their jobs in China? Is
there as big of a stigma that comes with job loss?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
The question is how are they going to reskill and
is there enough time for them to ever find that
opportunity to reskill Because in China, their job applications sometimes
just blatantly say no older than thirty five years old,
and for women it's even harsher. And age discrimination is
even worse because the prospective employers also question whether they
(09:52):
want to have a second kid or third kid.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Last week, China approved a plan to gradually delay retirement,
raising the retirement age for the first time since nineteen
seventy eight, a move likely to anger workers who are
already under stress.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I think that's why you're seeing so much social media
backlash after China announced that they were going to increase
the retirement age. And you know, some people joke that
if you can't even hold your job till thirty five,
how are you going to hold it out till sixty?
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And Historically, a high unemployment rate often leads to political unrest.
China's unemployment rate reached an all time high of thirty
percent in nineteen eighty nine, the same year when the
Tiananmen Square protests happened and the ensuing crackdown took place.
So I asked Lulu, could this new round of job
loss result in political instability, so.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
None of the people that we interviewed and financed plan
to protest. That's the cases of descent increased eighteen percent
in the second quarter compared with last year, and that
was by a survey by China Descent Monitor, and out
of those cases, most were related to economic issues and
aggrieved homeowners. That said Patricia Kim from the John Thornton Center.
(11:14):
She says that she's grip on power has not been
dented by any of this, with.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
China's ironclad grip on security and surveillance technology, widespread demonstrations
are out of the question. But some people are taking
their frustrations to social media, and that's a place where
you're seeing a particular phrase pop up, garbage time in.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
History, which is Alicia Alati is in garbage time of
History describes as society where the laws of economics are
violated and individuals have no power to make changes. Basically
saying that nothing that you do is right, which you
(12:01):
cannot invest, cannot spend, turn left, turn and.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Right, everything is wrong. That sounds all really depressing.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, I think it's like a more passive aggressive form
of people trying to make sense of what's happening to
them and turning all that negative energy into dark humor.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
And when the best and brightest and most ambitious citizens
are feeling depressed or unmotivated, the ramifications for the economy
could be huge. With salary cutbacks and potential job loss
on the horizon, Lulu says, the sources Bloomberg spoke to
are already cutting back on spending by doing things like
dining out less.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
You know, you wonder, oh, why is China consumer spending
not going up? That's the reason I think. Right now
we're just starting to see the effects unfold. And part
of the reason the consequences or the back clash hasn't
been that strong, I think is because a lot of
(13:04):
these people still have some household savings and they're slowly
eating through that savings right now, and we haven't gotten
to a point where where, you know, things are so
dire they can no longer put food on their plates.
And hopefully it never comes to that point and they
(13:24):
can still find that transition to the next act too
in their lives.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
In twenty nineteen, even before the economic downturn, the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences estimated that the urban pension fund
would run dry by twenty thirty five because not enough
people are working and paying into it. Fundamentally, Lulu says,
what we're seeing now is a conflict of values, a
(13:50):
clash of two generations of Chinese who hold very different worldviews.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
The battle is, you know it really it pits a
generation of people who those worldviews were shaped during an
era of reform and opening up versus a system that's
reverting to its more rigid roots under sea and his cabinet,
and these people spent their formative years during the more
turbulent Cultural Revolution era, whereas his generation grew up in
(14:19):
an era that first of all, benefited from China's reform
and opening up. Many of them went overseas and were
educated abroad. And that concept or that idea that China
would become more integrated with the US, with the rest
of the world, that was the norm. And now all
(14:39):
of a sudden, all these beliefs are up in the air.
One of my contacts asked me the other day, like,
who is still happy in China right now?
Speaker 1 (14:47):
That's right, and I think about it.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
You know, the government officials are under a huge amount
of pressure. The entrepreneurs are not motivated to invest capital.
Right now, state owned enterprise workers are being capped off
in salary. Your white collar workers working for foreign companies
are are fearful of losing their jobs. Now the shift
(15:11):
has left an entire generation of Chinese elites and previously
prestigious jobs adrift. And you know, the mood has gotten
so grim that many feel that they're living in the
garbage time of history.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
And in the meantime, what's happened to Thomas Wu.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Well, Thomas Wo has managed to find a group of
people who are like him, who want to avoid their
wives and I and now he has a cycling girl
and avoiding at home. And so now he has a
cycling group.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I guess. I guess at least that's a little bit
healthier than staying at home.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
I would say that most of these people that we
interviewed are surprisingly resilient mentally. From Wu's point, his goal
is to live healthy and be mentally stable and live
another thirty years so he can see his child grow
up and live an error where he considers to be
more in line with his worldview.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
So he's really then, you know, living out this future
for his children's future.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
That's right, And.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
I imagine hoping that somehow his children's future will be
a lot brighter than.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
His question for debate?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Is he hopeful question for debate? This is The Big
Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm one High. This episode
was produced by Young Young, Naomi mm and Jessica Beck.
It was mixed by Blake Maples and fact checked by
(16:48):
Eddie Dwan. It was edited by Caitlyn Kenny, Jeffrey Grocott,
and Emily Cadman. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Nicole
Beemster Bower is our executive producer, and Sage Bowman is
Bloomberg's head Podcasts. Please follow and review The Big Tick
Asia wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps new listeners
find the show. See you next time.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. It's one am and
the streets in Shanghai are relatively empty. Thomas Wu, who's
a father and a husband, is out riding his bicycle
alone under the dim street lights. The night wind envelops him,
(00:23):
just like the stress he can't shake off.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
He's working in state finance sector, which is experiencing a
salary cap and you know his pay has just been
cut by twenty percent at work, He's facing this uncertain future.
Doesn't know when or how long he can hold his
job for.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Wu got into an argument with his wife after returning
home late from work. She was frustrated teaching their six
year old math, something Wu wasn't sure really mattered anymore.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
He's wondering, what is the point of pushing our kids
so hard when jobs have become meaningless and efforts are
no longer tied to your pay your salary.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Lu lu Chin is Bloomberg's editor on Asia Investing. Her
team talked to Wu, who didn't want us to record
his voice, but was willing to share his frustrations. He
told Bloomberg that the career turn he's now facing has
upended the life he had planned for himself and his family.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
As a manager of a big state owned firm, he
enjoyed a good lifestyle. His kids are in international school,
which is the new homemark for upper middle class life
in China. He also had the luxury car, and now
all of that is being taken away.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
What's happening to Wu is part of a major policy
shift underway in China, where President Shei Jinping is actively
reshaping the world's second largest economy.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
The industries that are experiencing the most drastic changes include finance's, internet,
and real estate. And these were all important growth drivers
and job creators in the past, and now they're all
cast to drift.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
That policy shift, along with the job losses and pay
cuts it brings, is fueling an existential crisis among some
of the best and the brightest workers in China.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
They no longer see the era of working long hours
taking big risks. There's very little that they can do,
which is why people are referring it to the garbage
time in history.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Welcome to The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Wanha.
Every week we take you inside some of the world's
biggest and most powerful economies and the markets tycoons and
businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today on the
show How one of China's biggest policy shifts is leaving
a generation of professionals feeling a drift, and what happens
(02:59):
to a country when many of its brightest and most
ambitious citizens have their dreams crushed. The sectors of the
Chinese economy that the government now wants to rein in
employ a huge number of people in China.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
There's two hundred million people who work in white collar jobs,
and that's almost the population of Brazil if you broke
it down by sector. Finance alone had eight million people
property at its peak, if you include the supply chain
and construction workers, that provided jobs to one hundred million people.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Up until recently, these industries flourished with a strong labor
force and robust foreign investments, and Lulu says they were
part of an era where being rich was glorious and
entrepreneurs were celebrated.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
It was an error where people like Jack mo for sure,
was highly respected. He would go to conferences and young
people would chase him across the venue, hoping to get
a word of wisdom and learn about how he achieved
success in life. Now that error is gone, it's no
(04:11):
longer glorious to be rich.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
But now these industries have fallen out of favor in China,
and President Xijinping has said he wants to move the
country towards what he calls high quality growth golglen faja
gog golglen faja. Bloomberg went through the speeches last year
and found the phrase pop up at least one hundred
(04:34):
and twenty eight times, nearly double dimensions in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
That is the new mantra right now, high quality growth,
not high speed. So these industries, as finance, consumer, tech,
and property are out of favor. I think you could
say that the Communist Party has always been skeptical of finance,
viewing it as a way to enrich a few people
at the expense of the working class and fermenting instability
(05:02):
that has marred the US. And even though it's communist routs,
China has a high wealth disparity. A lot of policies
are aimed at tackling those issues.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
So if she wants to shift resources and tension away
from the banking and tech real estate sectors, where does
he want to redirect these resources?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
To paging is dubbed the new threes, so it's evs,
batteries and solar panels. Bloomberg Economics estimated that the proportion
of GDP from these sectors will swell to twenty three percent.
The high tech sector is also estimated to account for
nineteen percent of GDP by twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
As a result in the shift to high quality growth,
many people have lost their jobs. In real estate alone,
the collapse has tossed some half a million people out
of work in the three years through twenty twenty three.
That's according to data firm Korean Chiku. In the internet sector,
Ali Baba alone shrunk their headcount by roughly twenty thousand
(06:10):
last year, and Lulu says, even if you're lucky enough
to keep your job, you might not be able to
keep the same paycheck.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Look at CCC, one of China's largest investment banks. They
caught compensation for senior bankers by more than forty percent
and also the staff have been told to avoid wearing
luxury goods and no more business class.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
And some employees are even being asked to hand over
money they were already paid.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, some people have been told to pay back their bonuses.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
You basically have to give them back money that you've
already earned and have probably already spent.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yes, yes, which is why people are selling their cars.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Oh man, that must really hurt.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Lulu and her team talked to more than a dozen
people across the growth sectors that had been high flying finance,
tech and real estate. Many said they're now under mounting pressure.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Many highlighted the stress that they felt brought on by
these salary cuts, escalating scrutiny of expenses, also the sting
of being shamed on social media were their affluent lifestyles.
One of the people that we talked to Sharon's Howe,
who is an executive at a mutual fund, and she
(07:26):
also sold her car of Portia and she says that
sleeping pills are her best friends these days.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
All of these changes, the job cuts, pay cuts, and
the clawbacks are taking a toll on the mental health
of many workers in China that was captured in a
poll of sixty thousand.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
There was a recent poll by this consulting firm, tinancing Ly,
and they found that anxiety and depression were some of
the top concerns for people in China right now. Students
and workers, and finance and tech were the majority of
clients seeking mental health support.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
After the break. How will workers left behind manage as
economy moves forward, and what will the labor disruption mean
for the Chinese government. China's pivot from high speed growth
(08:28):
to high quality growth has potentially left millions of people
unemployed in the middle of their careers. But there are
promises of growth in new sectors like evs and solar panels.
So I wanted to know will the growth of these
new sectors make up for the losses in other industries
of the economy.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
It will create jobs, it will create growth, but it's
probably not going to be jobs for this batch of people,
this generation of people, because they're all in their mid
thirties and forties. They're not in stem subjects that are
needed for the high quality growth in chip industries that
(09:10):
are in favor right now. So this generation of people,
they face the danger of being cast a drift.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
And how difficult is it when white collar workers in
their thirties and forties lose their jobs in China? Is
there as big of a stigma that comes with job loss?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
The question is how are they going to reskill and
is there enough time for them to ever find that
opportunity to reskill Because in China, their job applications sometimes
just blatantly say no older than thirty five years old,
and for women it's even harsher. And age discrimination is
even worse because the prospective employers also question whether they
(09:52):
want to have a second kid or third kid.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Last week, China approved a plan to gradually delay retirement,
raising the retirement age for the first time since nineteen
seventy eight, a move likely to anger workers who are
already under stress.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I think that's why you're seeing so much social media
backlash after China announced that they were going to increase
the retirement age. And you know, some people joke that
if you can't even hold your job till thirty five,
how are you going to hold it out till sixty?
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And Historically, a high unemployment rate often leads to political unrest.
China's unemployment rate reached an all time high of thirty
percent in nineteen eighty nine, the same year when the
Tiananmen Square protests happened and the ensuing crackdown took place.
So I asked Lulu, could this new round of job
loss result in political instability, so.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
None of the people that we interviewed and financed plan
to protest. That's the cases of descent increased eighteen percent
in the second quarter compared with last year, and that
was by a survey by China Descent Monitor, and out
of those cases, most were related to economic issues and
aggrieved homeowners. That said Patricia Kim from the John Thornton Center.
(11:14):
She says that she's grip on power has not been
dented by any of this, with.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
China's ironclad grip on security and surveillance technology, widespread demonstrations
are out of the question. But some people are taking
their frustrations to social media, and that's a place where
you're seeing a particular phrase pop up, garbage time in.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
History, which is Alicia Alati is in garbage time of
History describes as society where the laws of economics are
violated and individuals have no power to make changes. Basically
saying that nothing that you do is right, which you
(12:01):
cannot invest, cannot spend, turn left, turn and.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Right, everything is wrong. That sounds all really depressing.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, I think it's like a more passive aggressive form
of people trying to make sense of what's happening to
them and turning all that negative energy into dark humor.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
And when the best and brightest and most ambitious citizens
are feeling depressed or unmotivated, the ramifications for the economy
could be huge. With salary cutbacks and potential job loss
on the horizon, Lulu says, the sources Bloomberg spoke to
are already cutting back on spending by doing things like
dining out less.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
You know, you wonder, oh, why is China consumer spending
not going up? That's the reason I think. Right now
we're just starting to see the effects unfold. And part
of the reason the consequences or the back clash hasn't
been that strong, I think is because a lot of
(13:04):
these people still have some household savings and they're slowly
eating through that savings right now, and we haven't gotten
to a point where where, you know, things are so
dire they can no longer put food on their plates.
And hopefully it never comes to that point and they
(13:24):
can still find that transition to the next act too
in their lives.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
In twenty nineteen, even before the economic downturn, the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences estimated that the urban pension fund
would run dry by twenty thirty five because not enough
people are working and paying into it. Fundamentally, Lulu says,
what we're seeing now is a conflict of values, a
(13:50):
clash of two generations of Chinese who hold very different worldviews.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
The battle is, you know it really it pits a
generation of people who those worldviews were shaped during an
era of reform and opening up versus a system that's
reverting to its more rigid roots under sea and his cabinet,
and these people spent their formative years during the more
turbulent Cultural Revolution era, whereas his generation grew up in
(14:19):
an era that first of all, benefited from China's reform
and opening up. Many of them went overseas and were
educated abroad. And that concept or that idea that China
would become more integrated with the US, with the rest
of the world, that was the norm. And now all
(14:39):
of a sudden, all these beliefs are up in the air.
One of my contacts asked me the other day, like,
who is still happy in China right now?
Speaker 1 (14:47):
That's right, and I think about it.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
You know, the government officials are under a huge amount
of pressure. The entrepreneurs are not motivated to invest capital.
Right now, state owned enterprise workers are being capped off
in salary. Your white collar workers working for foreign companies
are are fearful of losing their jobs. Now the shift
(15:11):
has left an entire generation of Chinese elites and previously
prestigious jobs adrift. And you know, the mood has gotten
so grim that many feel that they're living in the
garbage time of history.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
And in the meantime, what's happened to Thomas Wu.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Well, Thomas Wo has managed to find a group of
people who are like him, who want to avoid their
wives and I and now he has a cycling girl
and avoiding at home. And so now he has a
cycling group.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I guess. I guess at least that's a little bit
healthier than staying at home.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
I would say that most of these people that we
interviewed are surprisingly resilient mentally. From Wu's point, his goal
is to live healthy and be mentally stable and live
another thirty years so he can see his child grow
up and live an error where he considers to be
more in line with his worldview.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
So he's really then, you know, living out this future
for his children's future.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
That's right, And.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
I imagine hoping that somehow his children's future will be
a lot brighter than.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
His question for debate?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Is he hopeful question for debate? This is The Big
Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm one High. This episode
was produced by Young Young, Naomi mm and Jessica Beck.
It was mixed by Blake Maples and fact checked by
(16:48):
Eddie Dwan. It was edited by Caitlyn Kenny, Jeffrey Grocott,
and Emily Cadman. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Nicole
Beemster Bower is our executive producer, and Sage Bowman is
Bloomberg's head Podcasts. Please follow and review The Big Tick
Asia wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps new listeners
find the show. See you next time.
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