BIZCHINA / Biz Life

White collars becoming tied up
(Chinanews.cn)
Updated: 2006-07-24 10:37

According to a report by the China News Weekly, Chinese white collars are becoming fully occupied in the office. They pursue many of their activities in the office building, eating, doing exercises, resting, playing games or even dating. Their working companies also like to create a humane environment in the office so that staff members can complete the office work while doing some personal activities at the same time.

For these young people, they tend to go off work at a later time day by day, and in the end, they just don't want to go home. In large cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing, where economy is developing at a fast speed, office workers face an increasing work pressure day by day and many of them have begun to make office their home.

As the young generation in society, most of them are aged between 25 and 45. Most of them work in the IT sector, advertisement design industry, media, profession training industry, or corporate management. In the eyes of outsiders, they enjoy a comfortable life: they lead the fashion trend in the city and earn a high salary. They enjoy a flexible working schedule and a very good working environment. Having a good education background, the white collars don't have to worry lest they lose their jobs.

However, only the white collars themselves know what others see as a good life is in fact a boring life. They often work for extra hours, suffer from loss of creative capability and have little time to make friends. When they go off from work late at night, sometimes they might think of asking for a leave the next day and having a holiday somewhere. However, when a new day begins, they find everything back to normal and themselves pushed by new tasks.

In fact, even if they don't work for extra hours in the office, they have no place to go. Many of the young people are fresh from college, or have come to work in large cities from their hometowns. Their parents are not with them. If they don't cook their own meals, they may have nothing to eat for dinner. As newcomers, they haven't established a social network. They have few friends to chat with, and don't have much chance to go dating. Even if they might have a chance to relax and find people to chat with, these people are often than not their own colleagues.

Meanwhile, many of them face a great pressure for earning money to buy a house or a car. If they cannot afford to buy these, they still have to work to pay for high apartment rents and communication fares. For young persons who have just graduated from college and earn a low income, all these are enough to make them live a modest life.


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