Pretending to Go to Work: China’s Hidden Jobless Hide in Libraries and Malls

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A Lunch Photo Almost Gave Her Away

Coco Li, 32, nearly shared a picture of her home-cooked lunch in the family chat. She stopped in time. Her mother would have wondered why she wasn't at work.

Li quit her job at a state-owned property company more than six months ago. She cited a heavy workload and too little recognition. She has told her parents nothing.

Her reasoning is simple. Her mother would worry endlessly and pass that worry on to her, without solving anything. Li told Reuters that her mother's concern would not help her find work.

A Hidden Habit with a Huge Audience

Li is far from alone. Reuters reports that posts about "pretend work" have drawn more than 70 million views on RedNote, 610 million on Douyin and up to 320 million on Weibo. The posts cover where to spend the day, how to dodge relatives' questions and how it feels to keep up the act.

The idea is not entirely new. In 2025, the South China Morning Post described firms in Hebei province offering a fake office desk and lunch for about 30 yuan (roughly $4) a day. Customers could "work" from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and send photos home.

This year, a report in Sri Lanka's Daily Mirror described jobseekers using free Communist Party community centers as makeshift workplaces, partly to keep up appearances.

Parks, Libraries, Malls

Most of the advice online is practical. Stay out of the house during working hours. Drift between parks, cafés, libraries and malls.

Zhang, 36, a visual effects producer who lost her job to AI-related layoffs in August, was surprised to find a library completely full on a weekday. She gave only her surname.

Some people keep daily diaries. One user, in a post titled "Day 30 of unemployment," described 80 rejected applications.

Susan Sun, 28, was laid off by an internet company late last year. Her situation got harder in May, when her mother and stepfather moved into her Chongqing apartment to look for work. Now she leaves before 9 a.m. and comes home after 6 p.m.

Sun lives on 1,864 yuan (about $278) a month from unemployment benefits and leftover severance pay. She says she is content with little. The real strain comes from her parents, who pass on their anxiety through tone of voice and remarks about the bad economy.

What the Numbers Show

The official data point the same way. China's economy grew 4.5% in the third quarter, slightly above forecasts. Growth for the first nine months was 4.6%. Beijing's full-year target is 4.5% to 5%, its lowest since 1991.

Exports carried the result. Goods exports rose 16.4% in the first three quarters, according to the statistics bureau. Domestic demand and private investment remain weak. Reuters describes a "two-speed economy," in which factories and exports mask sluggish spending at home.

The urban unemployment rate was 5.2% in September. That headline figure hides a harder picture for the young. The jobless rate for 16-to-24-year-olds, excluding students, reached 18.9% in August, its highest in a year.

Authorities stopped publishing youth figures in June 2023, after the rate hit a record 21.3%. They resumed later under a new method that excludes students.

Reuters also points to price cuts and layoffs at manufacturers, a long property slump, tight local government budgets, automation and the rapid spread of AI.

Saving Face, Delaying Reckoning

Researchers see the habit as more than a private coping tactic. Diana Fu, a professor of Chinese politics at Cornell University, argues that hiding joblessness helps people keep their dignity. It may also take the edge off collective frustration.

In her view, this helps the government as it pushes automation and competes with the United States in technology. Pretending workers, she says, spare Beijing a hard choice between rapid automation and the job security that underpins its social contract with citizens.

Will the Pretence Last?

Yige Dong, a sociology professor at the University at Buffalo, doubts the act can last forever. China's safety net is thinner than the ones Japan and South Korea had in the 1990s. In those years, laid-off salarymen also kept up the daily routine of leaving for work.

Over time, Dong says, people will need money more than appearances. That means turning to relatives and borrowing, and the secrets would come out.

Analysts expect Beijing to lean more on fiscal support to lift domestic demand. For now, the daily commute to nowhere continues for people who say little to the families they are trying to protect.

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Sources

1. Reuters via The Standard (Hong Kong): "The fake commute: How China's unemployed save face" – https://www.thestandard.com.hk/china/article/345947/The-fake-commute-How-Chinas-unemployed-save-face
2. Reuters via Business Recorder: "China's economic growth picks up in third quarter, beating expectations" – https://www.brecorder.com/news/40444889/chinas-economic-growth-picks-up-in-third-quarter-beating-expectations
3. CNN: "China economy grows thanks to AI export boom but domestic slump remains a drag" – https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/18/economy/china-q3-gdp-intl-hnk
4. Quartz: "China's economy grew 4.5% in the third quarter, beating forecasts on export surge" – https://qz.com/china-gdp-third-quarter-growth-exports-forecasts-101926
5. South China Morning Post: "'Escapism': China firm offers office, lunch for US$4 a day for people hiding jobless status" – https://scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3293892/escapism-china-firm-offers-office-lunch-us4-day-people-hiding-jobless-status
6. Trading Economics (data from China's National Bureau of Statistics): youth unemployment, August 2026 – https://tradingeconomics.com/china/youth-unemployment-rate/news/584561
7. Trading Economics: youth data suspension and resumption – https://tradingeconomics.com/china/youth-unemployment-rate/news/494934
8. Trading Economics: China's 2026 growth target – https://de.tradingeconomics.com/china/full-year-gdp-growth
9. Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka): "China's jobseekers seek refuge in Communist Party centres to hide unemployment" – https://www.dailymirror.lk/print/international/Chinas-jobseekers-seek-refuge-in-Communist-Party-centres-to-hide-unemployment/107-345329

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