We were all asked the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Some of the classic answers include “doctor”, “celebrity”, “police officer”, “scientist” and “athlete”, whereas, for the younger generation in China, the answer is none of the above.
According to the “2022 Youth Job Search Insights” report jointly released by Bilibili (a leading video platform) and Zhaopin.com (a Chinese online recruitment services provider), programmer, civil servant, teacher, and designer are the top choice for post-00s, which shows plenty of them are still pursuing the traditional route.
However, the younger generation is entering the workforce amidst a global pandemic, dire job market, and uncertain future over the next few years. With all these factors at play, more and more post-00s started embracing less traditional career paths, such as livestreamers or video creators.
Livestreaming and video content creation have become an emerging avenue of income over the last 5-10 years not just in China but the whole world, and more recently these occupations have become possible for a number of young people due to the ever-increasing role social media plays in our lives.
The “2022 Youth Job Search Insights” report shows that video content creator is the most favoured job amongst post-00s Chinese when it comes to emerging occupations, which accounts for 19% of this age group’s respondents. Meanwhile, e-commerce live streamer and food blogger are the other two popular emerging jobs.
As young people enter the working world during a pandemic and remote working culture, it is believed that these unconventional paths will only continue to be more normalised.
