Scammers prey on young Chinese desperate for jobs in a bleak economy By Reuters

By Ethan Wang and Ryan Woo

BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese mother has gone on television to seek justice for her 19-year-old son, who has an intellectual disability, after scammers tricked a desperate jobseeker into having an enlargement operation breasts, in an incident that sparked widespread outrage.

The teenager, who hopes to get a job at a cosmetic surgery clinic in central Wuhan, was told the procedure would help him earn money by gaining followers via live streaming.

The clinic even convinced him to borrow 30,000 yuan ($4,180) to pay for the operation, his mother told a television station last week.

“For the sake of money, one can give up one’s humanity,” said one of the more than 2,600 comments on China’s Weibo (NASDAQ: ) social media platform, where posts about the boy’s plight have drawn more than 27 million views.

“Worse than beasts!” said another.

The mother managed to get the loan cancelled, with the help of the TV station and lawyers, but the breast surgery had already been done.

Scams such as recruiting for non-existent jobs, false advertising and loan traps are on the rise in China as the economy falters, with the country’s top law enforcement agency saying last year that scammers are targeting more students and recent graduates.

A record 11.79 million students graduated this summer as the world’s second-largest economy grapples with one crisis after another, from a trade war and the fallout from COVID-19 to a protracted housing crisis and prudent consumer spending.

A youth jobs crisis could test the economic leadership of the ruling Communist Party, which has repeatedly urged people to “listen to the party”.

Finding jobs for young people is a top priority, President Xi Jinping said this year as he expressed concern about their employment prospects.

FALSE PROMISES

Youth unemployment hit a record high of 21.3 percent last June, prompting China to halt publication of the closely watched benchmark, saying students still enrolled should be excluded.

There is no way to track all jobseekers between the ages of 16 and 24, but a spokesman for the Office for National Statistics said last year that 33 million of them were looking for a job. work.

“The pressure on employment still exists,” Liu Aihua, a spokesman for the statistics bureau, told a news conference on Thursday after data showed China’s overall unemployment rate rose to its highest four-month level in July.

“Key groups still face pressure (to find work).”

In another scam that emerged last month, a college student looking for a part-time job delivering groceries was tricked into signing a one-year contract to rent an electric bike.

An employee of a bicycle rental shop who pretended to be a recruiter for the popular food delivery service Meituan told the student that he needed to rent a bicycle before starting work.

A few weeks later, the student realized that his earnings were far below the “tens of thousands” promised by the “recruiter” and he was barely able to collect the monthly rent.

“It’s hard enough to find a job, and now we also have to watch out for scams,” said one Weibo poster.

Authorities say bleak job prospects have led some students to become scammers themselves.

The first 10 months of 2023 saw a 68% year-on-year increase in the number of under-18s being prosecuted for phone and internet scams, the prosecution agency said last November.

Incidents of young university graduates joining scam syndicates have also increased, a report added.

The Wuhan teenager’s trauma was compounded by having to go under the knife a second time to remove breast implants, his mother said on television.

“It hurts to see the two scars under my son’s chest,” she added.

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