Rising unemployment in China is pushing millions of college graduates into a tough bargain, with some forced to accept low-paying work or even subsist on their parents' pensions, a plight that has created a new working class of "rotten-tail kids."
The phrase has become a social media buzzword this year, drawing parallels to the catchword "rotten-tail buildings" for the tens of millions of unfinished homes that have plagued China's economy since 2021.
A record number of college graduates this year are hunting for jobs in a labor market depressed by disruptions induced by COVID-19 as well as regulatory crackdowns on the country's finance, tech and education sectors.