BBC:
No-one would want to work without getting a salary, or even worse – having to pay to be there.
Yet paying companies so you can pretend to work for them has become popular among young, unemployed adults in China. It has led to a growing number of such providers.
The development comes amid China’s sluggish economy and jobs market. Chinese youth unemployment remains stubbornly high, at more than 14%.
With real jobs increasingly hard to come by, some young adults would rather pay to go into an office than be just stuck at home.
Shui Zhou, 30, had a food business venture that failed in 2024. In April of this year, he started to pay 30 yuan ($4.20; £3.10) per day to go into a mock-up office run by a business called Pretend To Work Company, in the city of Dongguan, 114 km (71 miles) north of Hong Kong.
There he joins five “colleagues” who are doing the same thing.
“I feel very happy,” says Mr Zhou. “It’s like we’re working together as a group.”
Such operations are now appearing in major cities across China, including Shenzhen, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chengdu, and Kunming. More often they look like fully-functional offices, and are equipped with computers, internet access, meeting rooms, and tea rooms.
And rather than attendees just sitting around, they can use the computers to search for jobs, or to try to launch their own start-up businesses. Sometimes the daily fee, usually between 30 and 50 yuan, includes lunch, snacks and drinks.
