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After China abruptly ended its COVID lockdown controls late last year, hopes were high for a swift recovery for the world's second-largest economy.
Despite an initial improvement early this year, those hopes are starting to fade.
Several global banks have downgraded their economic forecasts on the back of lower-than-expected sales and investment data and record-high youth unemployment.
Economist Jiao Wang, from Melbourne University's Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, says youth unemployment is currently much higher than the average urban unemployment rate, which is around 5 per cent.
"The one particular group contributing to this increased youth unemployment rate is workers who graduated during the three-year pandemic … and are currently entering the labour market," she said.
In 2022, 10.8 million Chinese graduates were entering the job market, around 2 million more than the previous year.
This year, there are more than 11.5 million fresh graduates looking for work.
China's government has announced plans to improve employment, setting a target of 12 million new jobs and promising subsidies to companies that hire graduates or unemployed young people.
But the opportunities are few and far between.
President Xi Jinping has even encouraged young people to move to rural areas and take up manual labour, in a move roundly criticised online for invoking memories of a brutal past.
In 1966, communist leader Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution to "crush" remnants of capitalism, cracking down on "counter-revolutionaries" and sending millions of young people from rural areas to work re-education camps in remote villages.
The violent, decade-long purge has been described as one of China's most traumatic periods in history.
But today's young people are facing an entirely different set of circumstances.
With the government tightening control on technology, education and other professional industries, graduates are finding it difficult to put their new skills to work.
"The job creation in the sectors that the college graduates want to work in are not increasing," Dr Wang said.
"Those sectors include professional services sectors, such as law or finance firms, and information technology, education.
"So the mismatch between the supply and demand has contributed [to] this elevated [youth unemployment] growth recently, and it is a structural issue and it might take a long time to address it."
Consumer behaviour suggests it could be a bumpy road to recovery
Dr Wang said two of the key drivers behind the slowing of China's growth are weak consumer confidence and household consumption.
"In other words, people don't have the extra money to spend, and they don't have the willingness to spend either," she said.
"In the three years of the pandemic time, the balance sheet of average households has been damaged and is yet to be fully recovered. It may take a long time for the balance sheet to be fully recovered."
Consumer confidence is a key focus for the government, with this month's National Bureau of Statistics report noting an acceleration in efforts to "foster a new pattern of development … and expansion of demand", to stabilise market confidence and lay the foundation for reasonable growth.
"China's problems don't relate to people not having enough money for their mortgages like you see in other economies. The issue in China is the confidence of the household," Fidelity International's Catherine Yeung told the ABC last week.
"So it's about encouraging those savings to be deployed through consumption."
Australian wool exporter Joshua Lamb has just returned from a trip to China, the first time he's been able to see his customers face to face since the country reopened its borders.
"Shops weren't particularly brimming with customers, restaurants were half-full," he said.
"And it certainly seems, talking to the general public there, that they certainly haven't got back on their feet post-COVID, that's for sure."
China is Australia's largest export market for wool, with around 80 per cent of the annual clip being sold there.
This has helped the industry survive highs and lows over the last 20 years, including during the global financial crisis, according to Mr Lamb.
While several products, including wine, barley and crayfish, have been affected by tensions in the Australia-China relationship over the past three years, subject to tariffs and other trade bans, the wool trade has remained strong.
"What's concerning for us is we're considered a discretionary product," Mr Lamb said.
"So if things are tightening up around the world … people obviously stop spending pretty quickly at a retail level.
"And that's what we're seeing over the last six to eight weeks. The market, in general, is down 12 to 14 per cent."
Economists say it's not time to panic just yet
China's central bank last week cut interest rates to encourage investment, and other stimulus measures are expected to be on the way.
Dr Wang said Australia could benefit from some of these measures, depending on what they are.
"If they are more new infrastructure investment projects that will be good news for Australia, especially in terms of the commodity exports," she said.
"I think it is still a little bit too early to panic about the situation in China."
David Olsson, from the Australia China Business Council, said Australian businesses would be keeping a close eye on how the market was expected to fare over the next six to 12 months.
"China is our number one trading partner by a country mile, the two-way trade between Australia and China is nearly $300 billion a year," he said.
"It's an enormous market for us, so anything that happens in China has a direct impact on Australia, and Australian exporters and Australian businesses that are engaged with China."