Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable.
Think a gap year is just taking a break from work.
Think again. In China, taking time off can set off alarm bells with HR, and suddenly that break feels like a barrier.
The good news though, knowing the challenges means you can prepare and come back stronger.
We discussed how to navigate the gap year stigma and how to reframe that time off not as a red flag But as a unique edge in your career story coming to you from Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm her young for today's program I'm joined by you shouldn't in the studio and Bob Jones via video link first on today's show Who says gap years are just for?
students. A while back the adult gap year trended hard on Chinese social media.
People boldly walking away from work to find themselves or hit reset.
The rest of us scrolled through their nine photo creds half envious half anxious.
But now that some of them are trying to return to the workforce reality bites.
Many Chinese employers aren't buying the personal growth narrative.
So, is taking a break still too risky in today's Chinese job market?
Bob, let's go to you first. What is a typical gap year?
This idea is imported from the English -speaking world so give us the rundown.
I think the idea of having a gap year has been around for a long time.
We tend to call them sabbaticals, and people look at them as a means of, you know, maybe they've had a really tough time at work and they feel really burnt out and they need to have a bit of a break or, you know, going beyond that, they may have health issues that they want to address or they may simply want to change their job, in which case they need to do a bit of training or they need to learn new skills.
So there's lots of different ways.
Looking at it as something very simple and basic, it just does not exist. You have to think, okay, why is this person, why does this person want to take some time off, how long are they going to take off and what are they going to do with that time and then you have to think okay so how is this going to benefit me as the person who's going to take the sabbatical and how is this going to benefit the company that I'm working for and you know there are so many different ways of looking at it so many good points about it but there are also a lot of bad points about it and during my career I've seen
a lot of both to be honest I've worked for companies who are very positive about it, and I've worked for companies who are very negative about it, too.
So it certainly is not just for students.
Absolutely not! Although, I would say that for students it's a good thing, because it can be a treadmill when you're in full -time education.
You are at school for, I don't know, how many years.
I probably wasn't at school for as many years as I should have been.
But after that, a lot of people then go on to university, and then eventually will go into a job.
And what works for a lot of people, mentally, a lot of people aren't ready to go straight from school to university, and they will take a year out after school before they go on to further education.
That's quite common in the UK, certainly.
And, with me, I was lucky, because I went on to do a university course which had a gap year in the middle of it.
that was part of it and they found me a job working for a newspaper in Brussels.
So in a sense you know this again you could look at it in different ways, you can look at it as being a year's holiday, wow fantastic.
You know you've just done all your exams, and you could travel around the world and you're going to have a fantastic time if you've got the money.
Or with me it was okay I'll move on to this straight away and then I'll take a gap year, and that gap year will be helping me in my future career, it will give me some kind of skills that I can later on, go on and show to an employer and say, you know, look, I'm bigger than this, I'm bigger than just a university course, I actually have some experience of the workplace.
I know how to relate to people.
I've got ideas, which I've generated from maybe my travels or the things that I've seen, or the new skills that I can bring to the company.
So it makes you a little bit more valuable, I think when you start to look for a more full time job.
Hmm. And what is the latest on gap years in China, Yuxun?
There is actually a kind of an increasing number of, let's say, Chinese university graduates are choosing this kind of slow employment or we say they're not just getting an opportunity of employment right after their graduation, but, you know, find a job maybe slowly or just taking a gap year.
There is a survey by the job recruitment website Jiao Ping saying that nearly 20 % of graduates in 2024 opted for the slow employment and 14 % chose freelancing and both figures showing an increase compared to 2023.
and also another survey revealed that in 2023, 38 % of graduates chose slow employment— that's more than double the percentage in 2015.
However, there is still a kind of interesting phenomenon is that Chinese employers' attitudes toward gap years are generally unaccepting, or if not, unaccepting.
At least hold a negative view of gap years.
For example, on Chinese social media platform Douban, many job seekers claim that such experiences as having a gap year of experience have become obstacles during their hiring process.
They may be perceived as lacking perseverance or stability.
Having to frequently explain their gap year may be like, what did you do, or why did you have a gap year, or something like that.
experiencing delays in the recruitment process and also some even receiving lower salary offers.
And that discussion thread that was thriving on Doba and as Yuxuan has just referenced, had more than 10 ,000 users chatting about this.
And the discussion included the workplace gap year for working adults as well as the academic gap year for students or fresh graduates.
So when you saw this Bob, from an international perspective, what's your read into all these figures?
I think it's very difficult to simplify it because it really does depend on the employer, the kind of employer.
Certainly I've worked for big companies, and I've worked for small companies, and the bigger companies they like to have this um this idea that hey we're really modern we're up to date we want to try and attract new people into the business and and give them opportunities and we want to keep people within the business so we're going to offer you all sorts of wonderful benefits one of which would be maybe paid or unpaid time off, sabbatical, a gap year whatever you want to call it, now they can do that because they're big companies and it's just a question if one person goes out of the team, then
you bring in somebody else to fill in the space.
If you're talking about smaller companies, it's an absolute nightmare, because they can't do that, you know, you lose somebody really valuable from a very small group.
And you put the business in danger.
So you very often find that this goes with, for example, in the UK, we have the system of maternity leave and paternity leave, where you very often find People will not, when they're about to apply for a job, they will not mention that they want to start a family because the company will say, in which case we don't want to employ you because we know that in two or three years time, you're going to leave the team.
And I think that applies also to companies when they're asking about gap years they will say, well, you know, what's your motivation here?
How loyal are you going to be to this company?
And you know, can we believe in you?
can we say, okay, well, in year one, we're going to make you do this, in year two, we're going to help you become this, in year 3, maybe you'll become a manager, in year 4, maybe a senior partner or something like that?
It's important that the company can work out what you want to be and where you fit in with the company.
If you turn up on day one and say, hey, I want to work for you, but by the way, in a year's time, I'm going to take a gap year.
That really does send out the wrong signal.
Now, you shouldn't, but it is a very difficult thing.
There's also a big problem, I think, with retention.
A lot of companies in the UK find it difficult to hold onto staff because the working population is getting smaller and smaller.
So these kind of offers of great working environments and gap years, et cetera, keep on cropping up because some companies are desperate to hold on to their staff.
So it's very complicated.
I don't think it's very easy to say, well, all companies will feel this way or all employees will feel that they want to have a gap year.
It's so complicated.
It's like a little spider's web.
And I think that is also the beauty of having an in -depth discussion that is to look into all these different scenarios and to understand, yes, this world exists in different shades of gray.
And when you mentioned maternal, paternal leave, I think that's definitely one thing.
But when it comes to taking gap years, rarely do people have plans and saying oh I'm gonna take a gap here in the near future or in a few years time or whatever it is.
Most people kind of deal with it when you...
what's that saying, when you come in front of the bridge, so to speak.
So I think there are maybe some differences between the maternal leave versus the gap year option.
And here in China what are the top reasons that make people take a gap here.
As Bob said, it can be really complicated and some scholars are trying to find the reasons behind it.
Li Chuan -Yao, who is a scholar of East China University of Science and Technology, published an article on the journal called China Youth Study to find out some reasons.
And one possible reason is the continuously increasing number of graduates and some graduates need more time to find a job and that's leading to delayed employment or sometimes a gap year.
There is a recent China Daily reports showing that the nation will see more than 12 million fresh university and college graduates in 2025 up by 430 ,000 from 2022.
You know it seems that in recent years during graduation season we always see news like this right that the number of graduates is set to reach a new high again this year that kind of thing so it can be one of the problems for a lot of young graduates to maybe find a job and when they are having maybe some obstacles when finding a job and they just choose to or they just finding a job for the whole year and that can be seen as a gap year and another reason is it's that people are having that kind of personal awakening some way you know, young people are beginning to resist society's fixed expectations like,
for each stage of life taking a gap year maybe has become a way for them to explore themselves rebuild their identity and reconnect with society and actually know or they just like to spend a year to calm down and try to find out what they should do or what they want to do in the future maybe.
This is an interesting change that's happening in China.
We're just chatting with a couple of colleagues about this the other day in the office.
And somebody brought up this idea that, well, that person belonged to the millennial generation, so born between 1981 to 1996, I believe.
and then she was saying that back then a lot of people if their parents had the means would even Get them into school one year early if they could the mindset behind that is basically, you wanna jumpstart as early as possible in life and then every year matters and Just to get your head into the game as early as possible has its advantages but now you're seeing young people, either fresh graduates or working professionals at some point in their working life think that, oh I can actually take some time off.
And this is just not something that our parents' generation would think of or maybe this is a little bit of a blanket statement but it was certainly not in the public purview of taking a gap here.
And a few years ago we saw on Chinese social media so many people, so many podcasts talked about this and as a young working professional I remember feeling, oh this is promising, this is showing that the Chinese workplace is changing and people seem to be a little bit more accepting of this fresh idea but now in hindsight we see that the Workplace or those who have the power to make decisions don't necessarily agree with this concept that much I can give you a little bit more sort of Understanding of how we measure the Chinese style gap here, apparently there are two Dimensions.
Yeah, so basically voluntary and involuntary choices in some way they voluntarily choose to have a gap period before maybe entering the workforce more and maybe after entering the workforce.
And this type of reflects a desire to enrich their life experience and explore more responsibilities, and this is called that kind of exploratory type.
And, um, I think another one can go to the same category.
It's called buffering type.
They choose a pause after a period of work and often a short break taken after accumulating enough resources and then we go to that kind of involuntary category and people call them avoidance type.
It's their involuntary choice made in response to setbacks such as failing to pass postgraduate entrance exams or another like public service exams or being unable to secure employment.
And that made them to maybe have a gap here and So there's another one called forced pause type.
Some external circumstances such as being laid off or dealing with health issues that requires them to take a break.
And I think these are the examples that also Bob listed before.
And that is why I think the situation is quite similar compared to international situations.
But in another way, when we're calling it like avoidance type, I don't think people are trying to avoid anything and they're more likely like forced to do or forced to have this kind of gap year because they were just trying to have maybe future plans during this year but they may be not in some way succeeded and that's why they're having that gap here.
I think I can totally understand this kind of feeling, I have a friend who went through this phase before and in fact the gap year wasn't really a voluntary or intentional break, nor was it used for rest. And my friends spent the year preparing for the exams but the psychological pressure during that time was actually quite intense, I was thinking.
And first of all, there's the stress of maybe studying and preparing for an exam.
And another one is that when you see your friends around you they are all like maybe pursue further study or get a job and that can cause a huge peer pressure for you.
Yeah I think the two of you have raised such interesting questions there, so many in fact and I was trying to make a list of all the things that I wanted to comment on and I think that one thing that has been curious in the UK over the last five or six years and that is the effect of the pandemic because that has certainly changed way that people think in the UK.
You find that the younger generations and maybe I'm just being an old you know fuddy -duddy I'm you know I'm showing my age here but the younger younger generations when you talk to them they had such a bad time because they were shut away for two years and didn't have the connections which maybe I had when I was their age and so that's caused two different things.
One is it's meant that they find it we've got a whole generation that finds it very difficult to relate in person to other people, they're quite good on social media, but when it comes to actually going into a workplace they can't necessarily handle it, they don't know how to relate to people telling them what to do, or you know working within a team.
The other thing is that it's become almost as though they have like a mental, They're burnt out.
They feel as though they've had a different experience.
They don't share the idea of what is important in life.
That younger people will think it's not all about doing exams and education.
It's about experience.
It's about actually seeing the world and I think that it's a curious thing.
It doesn't happen just to younger people.
It happens to older people as well.
is one survey that said that 65 percent of staff in the UK felt burned out.
Now whether that's because they're working too hard or whether it's because you know they've had to face all sorts of curious things over the last five years or so but it does show that you know people are looking at these gap years and they're coming at it from different perspectives.
I noticed there was another survey which said that in the UK 28 % of companies are offering paid unpaid, sorry 28 % of companies in the UK are offering unpaid gap years and 16 % are offering paid gap years.
They're actually paying people to go for, go away from the company for a whole year but the one thing that came through in that survey was that people didn't care about the money.
It was they actually wanted the experience.
They wanted to broaden their minds and you mentioned your friend who was taking their time over trying to work out what they wanted to do next.
A young friend of mine who's just done her exam, she's about 17 -18 and she has no intention of going on to university straight away.
She's very happy. She's gone off I think she's somewhere in Vietnam at the moment and possibly miss possibly listening to the show but that's where she's gone she doesn't really mind what she's doing eventually she will come back and she probably will go to university but nobody around her thinks it's important that she does so that's a big that's been a big change I think over the last five years or so yeah that's very interesting and I wonder where does the money come from I think it's still a bit of a privilege for anybody whether you're a student or a working adult to more or less sit on that stash
of savings to be able to do this if your company is not sponsoring you.
And I think you put your finger right on it because Agapia has always felt very middle -class in the UK now I know you know that means that it's a it is for people who live very Comfortable lives and they have enough money and they can make those decisions but that isn't the same for everybody in society and Certainly, there are people who come from poorer backgrounds who are hoping to go to university it's their only chance really to get a really good job a well paid job and They can't take the risk of taking a year out this they just don't have the money to do it So it definitely does come down
to the finances who is going to pay for this Yes, indeed, and also, you casually brought up a very important factor here as well.
That is, you mentioned in the UK job market a lot of employers really want to keep their good people even if they want to take a break.
And here in China, you mentioned earlier that, well, we've got record amount of young, fresh graduates pouring into the job market every year continuously for a few years now.
So I suppose the work force looks quite different and it will undoubtedly have something to do with how the employers will react.
And here is definitely a catch. While all those reasons we mentioned might sound perfectly valid to many of us, they don't always land well with the Chinese employers.
Why do many employers in China still frown upon gap years?
hmm the first thing is I think about the social perceptions of the gap year or gap this kind of action.
Chinese society is largely driven by a that's what we call like social clock that emphasizes fixed tasks at each stage of life such as getting into a top University pursuing graduate studies securing like a job or stable job, joining a prestigious company and buying a house or something, a gap year is often seen not as a period of productivity, but as a kind of waste of resources or waste of your time.
And from the perspective employers, we can see that maybe employers will worry that a gap year might indicate a lack of ability, instability, or difficulty adapting to the For example, if the candidate did nothing during the gap year, the HR might doubt that their interest in working all together or they may as I said before, asked you, what did you do and what was your thinking and why you did do that.
And that could be one of the reasons that they maybe postpone your recruitment.
Oh, and let me add insult to injury with another piece of evidence.
This is according to a WeChat post published last year in February titled Workplace doesn't welcome young people after gap period carried by true story lab on WeChat.
And it talked about hit hunters sometimes labeling gap year takers when they come back looking for a job as damaged goods therefore they should be paid less when they're negotiating for the next job.
Bob, some thoughts about all of this?
Yeah, I was just thinking about what you were saying and, words, work experience came to mind because definitely in the UK, if you have gone to take a year out and have got some work experience while you were taking that time off, you are certainly seen as a good thing.
You are seen as somebody who has been industrious and has decided to improve their skills, while not essentially going into the business that perhaps they have as an ambition?
It doesn't really matter what it is.
You could be working behind a bar.
You could be working on a farm.
You could be working anywhere.
The fact that you've gone out there and done something and got skills, that looks good.
I agree from an employer's point of view that if you were to come and say, I just had a fantastic time.
I didn't do anything.
I laid in bed, I played with social media.
That's not a good thing.
I know the value of travel, and meeting new people, and relating to other cultures.
And I think most employers in the UK would think that if you'd done that, if you've gone around the world, or if you'd decided to take an extended break abroad, they would look on that quite favourably.
But that again, it comes down to money, not everybody can take that time out.
If you've got very good parents who are willing to give you the money, that's fine.
But most people probably can't do that.
And then of course you have to think about what does it look like on day one when you've got five or six candidates in front of you and you want to pick one of them who are you going to pick?
Are you going to pick the person who has come straight from college?
Are you going to pick the person who went around the world?
Are you going to pick the person who stayed in bed?
Are you going to pick the person who started working in a gas station or something?
then you know, you've got to look at it, I think, from the employer's perspective.
You want somebody who's going to believe in the work that they do and is going to be loyal and you can keep and they'll still be there in 10 years time and maybe even running the company because they have been so loyal.
Yes, as a working adult here in China, I have to say what's truly tragic here is this.
So many young professionals feel the only way to rest, recover from burnout is to quit their jobs entirely not because they want to drift but because in most workplaces taking a proper sabbatical is simply not an option.
So they're left with no support, no system just themselves if they're lucky enough their family support forced to step away under the label of a gap year just to heal from the damage done by work itself and then when they try to come back a lot of the times they're met with suspicion not understanding, and to me this is the real problem of this subject in the 21st century.
As we've seen Chinese employers are showing little mercy to adult gap year takers, so what should be the next step for those trying to re -enter the workforce?
Yeah, I think it's more important to have a at least clear understanding of what you are doing, or what do you want from this gap year.
Just Just trying to figure out how to spend a gap year meaningfully can already be quite stressful actually because you need to answer all of the questions of the HRs.
So I believe that whether you choose to rest or just do maybe volunteer work, it's all valid.
If you feel that you need a year to properly rest and reflect, that's totally fine.
I don't think that would be a particularly unacceptable reason for an employer, at least not if they truly value your abilities.
But the point is that you know what you are doing and what are you gonna do after the gap year?
Yeah, and also when you're trying to deal with some of these unfriendly questions about gap in the workplace, I think Bob listed some of the good tips before and another one I was thinking of is that if the gap year was due to maybe family reasons, it's important to clarify whether the issue has been resolved and also depending on the length and reason for the gap year, different explanation strategies can be used.
And if it's a short gap year, you can emphasize the importance of rest and careful planning for your future career.
But all in all, just be honest and genuine of what you actually was thinking about this gap year.
Yeah, can I be the voice of doom here, just for a few moments, because one important thing that I've been a freelancer all my life and one of the important things about being a freelancer is that you have to pay national insurance in the UK which means that you get a pension when you're older and we have to have 35 years of payments to make sure that we get our pension at the end of the time.
Now, if you take time off as a gap year and you're not working it means you're not getting those payments which means that somehow later in your life you're going have to make them up, either you have to buy extra years.
So it's probably a very unique thing for the UK because we have the national insurance system and our welfare system is quite unusual, but it is something to think about that you have to think that's okay, so you're not earning while you are taking a gap year and that is going to impact your life later on and that's a big thing.
Again it comes down to money.
Actually, we have the kind of similar system here.
In May 2023, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security published an article explaining how flexibly employed individuals, I think that's what Bob was referring to himself, or freelance, can participate in social insurance.
According to this article and in line with state council regulations, flexibly employed individuals include self -employed workers, part -time workers, and those engaged in new forms of employment.
There are two available systems for flexibly employed individuals to enroll in social insurance.
They may choose to participate in the basic pension insurance for enterprise employees as individuals or they can opt to join the urban and rural resident pension insurance scheme.
Anyway, they will have some ways to get a kind of insurance with their employment status.
Yes, and that's a very important, talking about collecting pensions in the decades to come, definitely think about that, and in terms of the interview and looking for the next job, I have a couple of small tips.
Tailor your resume and interviews to show continuity, even if it was a gap year you took, Maybe you freelance to courses or developed soft skills such as adaptability or even cross -cultural communication Align your story with the values of the company You're applying to show them that you didn't step away from responsibility You redefined it and if the door still won't open Consider employers and industries with more flexible mindsets the shift may be slow in China, but companies that recognize the value of rest and renewal will increasingly attract the talent others overlook.
