Young Chinese are getting paid to be 'full-time children' as jobs become harder to find | CNN Business
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Exhausted by the pressure to succeed as a photographer, Litsky Li accepted a better offer: quit work to become one of China’s growing legions of children paid by their families to stay home.

CNN wrote that China has an employment problem because the jobless rate for 16 to 24 year olds in urban areas hit 21.3% last month, a record high.

When read uncritically this sounds pretty bad, and CNN relies on the fact that the readers will not analyze this statement further. Let’s take a look at how absurd the argument in the article actually is.

First, why are they counting from 16 years old. I realize that child labour is being normalized in US right now, but in civilized countries kids don’t work and they go to school. A serious unemployment statistic wouldn’t include children.

Second, the article presents this as an abnormal situation, but is it actually.What is the situation like in Europe for example?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/613670/youth-unemployment-rates-in-europe/

Turns out that it’s pretty comparable, yet we don’t see CNN writing sensational articles about a youth unemployment crisis in Europe.

To sum up, CNN created a story out of whole cloth that relies on the readers not being curious enough to read it critically.

This is what much of reporting in western media looks like. Yet, a lot of people genuinely think that the media they consume is factual and unbiased allowing it to shape their views of the world.

  • ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
    12·
    11 months ago

    Unemployment is counted from 16, but full time students are not counted in unemployment statistics, both high school and college. No unemployment statistic is counting 17 year old high school students.

    That seems reasonable to do.