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China Focus: Young Chinese Scrambling for Job Amid Glut of College Graduates

Posted on: Wednesday, 8 March 2006, 09:00 CST

China Focus: Young Chinese scrambling for job amid glut of college graduates

By Xu Lingui

BEIJING, March 7 (Xinhua) -- Though graduation was still one year away, Shanghai finance student Zhuang Nan had started to worry about job hunting.

For three months, he interned in a stock company in Shanghai's economically vibrant district of Pudong, aiming to impress his future boss with his work experiences.

"Jobs used to come easy for graduate students, but now it is so hard to land on a job that we have to throw ourselves into the market as early as possible," said 24-year-old Zhuang, who studied in the graduate school of the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

He said half of his 100 classmates found internships in companies, especially foreign firms and joint ventures.

Like Zhuang, many of China's college students worry about job prospects, as the number of students in colleges and universities swells to 23 million.

Unfortunately, job opportunities have not grown as dramatically.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Sunday said his government "would give weight to the employment of college graduates." Employment has been placed on top of Wen's list of "problems that affect people's immediate interests and deserve the government's great attention."

A decade ago, a university education meant a promising future as only a handful of elite students had the chance to enter college, and every graduate was guaranteed a life-long job in government organizations or state firms.

But these promises ended years ago when the government decided to let students find jobs themselves.

According to the Ministry of Education, the employment rate of college graduates has fluctuated at around 70 percent in recent years. Last year, about 876,000 students graduated without jobs, a figure expected to rise in 2006.

"The graduate unemployment issue has never been as prominent as it is at present," said Yu Baoji, an official with University of International Business and Economics in charge of assisting graduate students find jobs.

The problem is that China's colleges have failed to train students in accordance with the labor market's demand amid schools' headlong enrollment expansion, Yu said, adding that colleges should actively interact with companies and offer more internship opportunities.

Official figures show that more than 27 million students need to find jobs in the next five years, with the annual growth of graduates around 700,000 to one million. This summer, there will be around 4.13 million new graduates.

"With the economy growing rapidly, there will be more job vacancies in China," said Zheng Gongcheng, professor of human resources at People's University in Beijing. He said it was important for schools to change curricula and create education models to suit the market demand.

Zheng also acknowledged that employment bias concerning gender, diploma, and work experience seriously hamper the job prospects of college graduates.

Most graduates are being rejected for not having enough experience, an excuse dreaded by new job seekers, said Zheng, who called it a bias for employers to require first time job seekers to have such experiences.

But he also said college students should get trained to be more handy rather than being only academics savvy but clumsy at work.

To cushion the employment pressure, the prestigious Tsinghua University has launched a career-planning scheme, inviting company personnel to coach students on job hunting and career planning.

Students are also inspired to start their own businesses, according to school sources.

But experts said the job market would remain tight in the next few years despite actions taken by the government or schools, adding to the country's already heavy pressure from laid-off workers and idle rural laborers.

Source: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS

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