Tag: Labor and Jobs

Trump’s Tariffs Hurt U.S. Jobs but Swayed American Voters, Study Says

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The sweeping tariffs that former President Donald J. Trump imposed on China and other American trading partners were simultaneously a political success and an economic failure, a new study suggests. That’s because the levies won over voters for the Republican Party even though they did not bring back jobs. The nonpartisan working paper examines monthly data on U.S. employment by industry to find that the tariffs that Mr. Trump placed on foreign metals, washing machines and an array of goods from China starting in 2018 neither raised nor lowered the…

India’s Quiet Push to Steal More of China’s iPhone Business

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India is quietly grabbing from China more manufacturing of Apple’s iPhones and other electronics gear. It is happening in South Indian industrial areas on muddy plots that were once farmland. In Sriperumbudur, people call Apple “the customer,” not daring to say the name of a company that prizes its secrets. But some things are too big to hide. Two gigantic dormitory complexes are springing up from the earth. Once finished, each will be a tight block of 13 buildings with 24 rooms per floor around an L-shaped hallway. Every one…

How These Young People Got Their Jobs in China’s Tough Job Market

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They knew the job market would be tough. None were prepared for just how tough it proved to be. China’s economy is struggling through a sustained slowdown, with real estate developers mired in debt, families fearful of spending and entrepreneurs hesitating to take risks. Joblessness levels among young people have hit record highs. We spoke to five young Chinese about what it took to find their jobs amid such uncertainty. They described moving home with their parents, exhausting their savings, taking on unpaid internships or working two jobs. They also…

What Hefei, China’s EV City, Says About the State of the Economy

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Ultramodern factories churn out electric cars and solar panels in Hefei, an industrial center in the heart of central China. Broad avenues link office towers and landscaped parks. Subway lines open at a brisk pace. Yet at Hefei’s market for construction materials, which fills 10 city blocks, local merchants are gloomy. Wu Junlin, a vendor of doors, has closed two of his three stores and laid off all but one of his dozen employees. “I have been doing this for 20 years — after all these years, this year is…

China’s Youth Unemployment Rate Is Back, and Better

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After suspending the public release of youth unemployment rates last year, China started distributing the information again on Wednesday, using a different measurement criteria that lowered the figure significantly. China’s National Bureau of Statistics stopped announcing the jobless rate among 16- to 24-year-olds after the figure climbed for six consecutive months to 21.3 percent in June, a record high. The government said when it suspended the numbers for July that the collection of the information needed to be “further improved and optimized.” The growing number of unemployed young people had…

China’s Electric Car Factories Are Facing a Worker Shortage

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Xing Wei graduated from a vocational high school in northeastern China in 2003 and went to work as an electrician in an auto parts factory in the country’s south. The only set of wheels he could afford was a black, three-speed bicycle. He earned $1,150 a year and shared a sweltering dormitory room with three other workers. “There was air-conditioning, but because we had to pay the electricity ourselves, we basically didn’t turn it on,” Mr. Xing said. Two decades later, Mr. Xing, 42, makes close to $60,000 a year.…

The Rise and Fall of the U.S.-China Economic Partnership

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For more than a quarter century, the fortunes of the United States and China were fused in a uniquely monumental joint venture. Americans treated China like the mother of all outlet stores, purchasing staggering quantities of low-priced factory goods. Major brands exploited China as the ultimate means of cutting costs, manufacturing their products in a land where wages are low and unions are banned. As Chinese industry filled American homes with electronics and furniture, factory jobs lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese from poverty. China’s leaders used the proceeds of…

‘Youth (Spring)’ Review: Garment Rending

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Despite running three and a half hours, the documentary “Youth (Spring)” withholds a great deal. That isn’t necessarily a criticism. The film is the latest documentary from Wang Bing, a persistent and widely admired chronicler of China’s downtrodden — its migrants, its outsiders, its mental patients and its survivors of forced-labor camps. “Youth (Spring)” is partly a follow-up to his “Bitter Money,” which opened in New York in 2018 and concerned the textile boom in Huzhou, China; the city had become a destination for migrants eager for work. While “Bitter…

For China’s Jobless Young People, Hostels Are the Place to Be

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In a youth hostel in downtown Shanghai, amid the dull roar of a hair dryer, the shriek of a blender and the lingering aroma of spicy instant noodles, Ethan Yi, 23, was pondering the state of the world. “Why can’t I, a college graduate, find a job?” Mr. Yi lamented as he sat in the hostel’s common room after a day of unsuccessful interviews. “Why is it only jobs that pay just $400 or $500 a month that want me? Sometimes I wonder, how can it be this hard?” That…

Migrant Workers Propelled China’s Rise. Now Many See Few Options.

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“My ideal country is one where the people live in peace and prosperity, where there is food safety, freedom of speech, justice, a media that can expose injustices, a five-day, eight-hour workweek for workers,” said Mr. Zhang, the unemployed welder. “If these can be achieved, I will support whoever is in power, regardless of their party or how long they govern.” The other reality facing migrant workers is that returning to their villages to earn money farming is not an option, as Mr. Xi said it was. There is not…