Tired of the 9-to-9 Grind? A Chinese Ranch Offers 8,000 Yuan a Month to Watch Sheep
When Zuo Xiaoyong posted a simple job ad on Chinese social media in late April, he didn’t expect it to explode. He was looking for two shepherds—preferably a couple—to tend 3,000 sheep on his 2,000-hectare ranch in Inner Mongolia, about 300 kilometers from Xilinhot, near the Mongolian border. The work is seasonal: summer grazing outdoors, then indoor feeding and barn cleaning in winter, when temperatures can plunge below minus 30 degrees Celsius.
The pay? 8,000 yuan per person each month, plus free accommodation and groceries. That’s a good chunk above China’s national urban average salary of roughly 6,000 yuan for private-sector employees. But Zuo was upfront: “This is not tourism,” he told Reuters. “The salary is high, but whether you can work long-term and get through the winter is what matters most.”
The ad, featuring a video of sheep frolicking on green grass, racked up nearly 59 million views on Weibo. More than 700 people applied. About 10% were recent university graduates; others included factory workers and white-collar professionals tired of office politics in megacities like Shanghai and Chongqing. “It seems ordinary people are having a hard time finding work,” Zuo said.
China’s official unemployment rate sits at about 5.2%, but for young people aged 16 to 24—excluding students—it’s 16.9%. Many are fed up with the punishing “996” culture—working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. One applicant, 21-year-old James Guo, works making shipping containers. “You have no idea what it’s like to work more than 13 hours a day, fastening screws until your hands are swollen and covered in blisters,” he said. “The workload is too intense. I can’t take it anymore.”
In the end, Zuo hired four shepherds—two couples—who had farm experience. He has a shortlist of 40 more couples for future openings, but he won’t take singles or city kids. “In our place, you might not see people for a whole year,” he said. “Whether someone can endure such loneliness, I don’t know.”