world financial crisis & chinese social media ::
:: what do you do if you’ve lost your job in the economic slump, or if you’re worried about the security of the job you still have? Netizens in China have a wealth of sites online where they can turn to their online friends for information, emotional support, or just to complain.
Bujingqi (不景气)
The most famous discussion forum started in response to the economic downturn. Its name means “slump,” and it claims that when the Shanghai Composite Index rebounds back over 6,000 (it’s at 2,221 today), it’ll close down. The site is a space for laid-off and nervous workers to talk about their prospects, seek new opportunities, and find ways to let off steam. There are subsections devoted to techniques for reducing stress and for saving money, and there’s a board where new graduates can gripe about their own specific problems and seek help from their more experienced colleagues in the workforce. Bujingqi is run by Daxiang Technology, which also runs iWallChina, a rating site for domestic brands. For more information on Bujingqi, see the WSJ’s China Journal blog post from December, and a China Business article from February which suggests that Daxiang is laying the groundwork for a social networking system that’s not just another Facebook clone.
JobLoser (失业网)
This aptly-named website is devoted to providing support to people who have lost their jobs. Although its forums cover the same range of practical topics as Bujingqi, the focus of the JobLoser site is more about emotional support. The BBS posts currently featured on the front page include “Don’t despair at your unemployed life!”, “You’ve lost your job, but you still have your heart”, “Waiting for life for one year and two months”, “My life’s hit a dead end”, and “How to face the stress of the job hunt after losing your job.”
Douban savings clubs
On the BBS-oriented social networking site Douban.com, users have formed a number of groups devoted to sharing ways of saving money. “Let’s all do a 100-yuan week” was created in November 2008 and currently has 160 members who discuss strategies for saving on utilities, transportation, and other major expenses. It follows a sister group, “Five yuan a day,” which was founded in June 2008 and is oriented more toward the purchase of food and daily necessities. It has 976 members. The 1128 members of the “Ten yuan a day” group, founded in July 2008, are more interested in economizing in the cities, where it would be very difficult to live on just 5 yuan a day. The stated goal of these communities is not just to help their members live cheaply, but to live well. Douban’s “No-money travel” group was started in 2006, before the current economic crisis, but it remains active today. Its 12,563 members share transportation tips, ideas for low-cost lodgings, and from time to time arrange to meet up in real life.
User-generated forums
Some online discussion forums allow netizens to set up topical discussion groups that are viewable to the public. On the Tianya BBS, for example, morbid netizens can wait for the axe to fall by watching the Layoff board. The majority of posts are straightforward announcements layoffs or rumors of impending downsizing, but there are also a few in-depth discussions where members trade gripes about companies. The current top thread is a discussion about one netizen’s complaint that HP refused to renew his contract, which has been running since last November. Baidu also has a netizen-generated Layoff board, but its Unemployment Board is substantially more active. The community of unemployed (or soon-to-be-unemployed) netizens air their complaints and share tactics for finding new employment. One long-running discussion predicts that the job market will remain bad throughout 2009 and asks netizens to share their job hunting experiences.
51Job Questionnaires
51Job.com, a major online HR site, has an online “salon” where netizens can share their opinions on topics chosen by the site’s moderators. A number of recent survey topics have involved the economic crisis, with questions basically boiling down to asking netizens whether they’re concerned about being fired. For example, in response to the question “Right now, how has your attitude toward your work changed?”, 29% of respondents chose “I’m working harder to make sure I don’t get cut”; 20% said “I’m not working as hard as before, because even if I did, I’d still have my salary reduced, or end up laid off”; the remainder chose “I’m working the same as I was before.” A long list of comments by registered members express both frustration at current circumstances and hope for better opportunities in the future. But this is a job hunt website, so it shouldn’t be read as being representative of netizens as a whole.
// AjS
March 30th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
[...] “have formed a number of groups devoted to sharing ways of saving money.” The site 56minus1, highlights some user groups, ranging from hundreds of members to over 12,000 members; these groups [...]