Li, a former employee of a Chinese state-owned property firm, quit more than six months ago because of a high workload and little recognition. But instead of telling her family, she has chosen to keep up the appearance of having a job.
"She would fall into an endless cycle of anxiety and eventually pass that anxiety on to me," Li said of her mother. Her mother's concern "couldn't really solve my problem," she added.
A growing online trend
The practice of pretending to be employed has gained significant attention on Chinese social media. Posts offering advice on where to spend the day, how to avoid questions from relatives and what life is like for pretend-workers have attracted more than 70 million views on RedNote and 610 million views on Douyin. Related hashtags on Weibo have received up to 320 million views.
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The trend comes as China's job market faces growing pressure. Manufacturers are dealing with fierce competition by cutting prices and payrolls while increasing workloads for employees who remain.
A prolonged property market crisis and tight local government finances have also weighed on jobs and incomes. Automation and the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence are adding to those pressures.
Diana Fu, an associate professor of Chinese politics at Cornell University, said pretending to go to work can help people save face and reduce social tensions.
"Pretend-workers are helping the Chinese government to stave off the hard choice between leaping ahead in automation and protecting job security, which is so essential to the social contract," she said.
Libraries and malls become makeshift workplaces
For some unemployed people, the daily routine begins before their families notice anything unusual.
Zhang, 36, a visual effects producer who lost her job in AI-driven redundancies in August, said she was surprised to find libraries completely occupied on weekdays.
"I never would have believed the library would be completely full on a weekday," she said.
Others document their days online. One post titled "Day 30 of unemployment: a month pretending to work" described 80 failed job applications.
Susan Sun, 28, has hidden her layoff from an internet company since late last year. The situation became harder in May when her mother and stepfather moved from their smaller hometown to Chongqing to look for work.
Sun now leaves home before 9 a.m. and returns after 6 p.m. She lives on 1,864 yuan (₹26,487.44) a month in unemployment benefits and what remains of her severance package.
She said she is comfortable living on little and not working, but finds pressure from her parents harder to deal with.
"They pass their anxiety on to me, through subtle, insistent expressions and tone of voice," she said, particularly when they tell her to save money because "the economy is bad."
Yige Dong, an assistant professor of sociology at the University at Buffalo, said China's relatively thin social safety net could eventually make it difficult for unemployed people to maintain the appearance of working.
At some point, "individuals would probably be more concerned with pooling resources from all available sources, including borrowing from family members and relatives," Dong said.