China’s fresh graduates are freaking out at living costs in tier-one cities as rents outpace starting pay in jobseekers
- Millions of graduates compete for jobs and flats in coveted tier-one cities only to push up rental costs, analyst says
- Rents in Beijing and Shanghai have risen 14-18 per cent since 2016 while the starting pay for new graduates rose 10.4 per cent from 2015 to 2020
The monthly pay for first-time jobseekers among graduates in big cities grew at 2 per cent annually over the past five years to 5,290 yuan (US$819) in 2020 from 4,793 yuan in 2015, according to recruitment platform Zhilian Zhaopin, while top graduates from the elite Tsinghua University commanded about 17,682 yuan.
Both are however below the minimum pay of 21,000 yuan needed to lease an entire apartment on their own in Beijing, according to a survey by Beike Research Institute. That leaves many of them to share a nano-flat about the size of a car parking bay, much like in Hong Kong, to survive the crunch.
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“I’m tired of this kind of life, using almost half my salary on this shoebox space and still worrying if my landlord will raise the rent again or ask me to move out because he has sold the flat,” said Louis Xie, a 24-year-old postgraduate working in the capital. “I never ever thought that getting a home is such a difficult thing.”
Xie and two others are paying 8,800 yuan a month to share a 55-square metre (592 square feet) two-bedroom flat in a 40-year-old building about 20 minutes’ walk from his office. He is thinking of heading back to Changsha, his hometown some 15 hours by car south of Beijing, if the landlord raises the rent again after the last one 10 months ago.
