A not bad piece on Xinhua about a growing problem for the Chinese leadership: college grads who either can’t find a job at all, or are severely underemployed. Ask yourself a question: if you’re sitting in Zhongnanhai, which is more likely to get your attention: brain dead protectionists in Congress in the United States (whose party now control the House of Representatives…) bleating on about the Chinese “stealing” jobs from hard working Americans (unemployment rate in the U.S.: 4.6 per cent, just above historic lows), or the waves and waves of //educated// young people in this country who struggle to find work…even at 10 per cent per year GNP growth?
Piece folos…
College graduates face slim job market
BEIJING, Feb. 23 (Xinhuanet) — The bitterness of a Beijing University graduate who had to sell sweets on the street for a living highlights China’s slim job market which will soon see another annual flood of first-time job seekers.
Wu Xiaofeng, a 23-year-old preventive medicine major, had to return his hometown in Dalian, northeast China’s Liaoning Province,in December after many futile attempts to find a job. The potential employers he contacted, including health authorities, disease prevention bodies and hospitals in Beijing and Dalian, were all fully staffed.
While he waited for responses to 10 other job applications, he helped his parents skewer candied haws and then stood on the street selling the traditional snack. The meager income helped to feed his impoverished family.
Wu received widespread sympathy and concern after his story was published in local newspapers last month. Job offers poured in and he finally joined a private company in Anshan, an iron and steel base in northeast China’s Liaoning Province.
But not every job-hunting story has such a happy ending. Higher job demand A record 4.13 million students nationwide are expected to graduate from universities this summer, an increase of 730,000 over last year and 1.15 million more than in 2001. The Ministry of Education predicts at least 25 million college students will graduate between 2006 and 2010.
Th e ministry said about a quarter of last year’s college grads are
unemployed. “There were 9 million new jobs nationwide in 2005, 5 million of which were reserved for laid-off workers from state factories,” said Liu Dawei, a ministry official. Employment was never an issue during the era of central planning: Back then, only 1 percent of secondary students gained entry into universities and the government assigned everyone a job. That system changed forever in 1988, with the first graduate job fair at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. The last guaranteed job was axed in 2000.
The days of smooth sailing are over for today’s job-hunting students who must compete for a limited number of deck chairs. Employment fairs are mobbed by CV-waving students, while newspapers regularly assess demand and supply curves of the short and long-term labor markets. Job market pressure has all but dashed the once-carefree world of college life: nearly 93 percent of 1,431 people surveyed by sina.com said they were stressed over their job prospects while 77.5 percent said the pressure was intense. About 57 percent of respondents attributed the pressure to an ever-increasing number of first-time job seekers, while 56 percent blamed an ever widening gap between reality and expectations of both family members and the students themselves. “When I was a senior, I used to toss and turn in bed until early morning. As I studied all-out to qualify for graduate school, I was distraught with fears that some very good job opportunities might be slipping by,” said Ma Xiaowei.
Now a first-year graduate student at Qinghua University, Ma said if anything, the pain is even more acute. “My parents and their friends think a degree from Qinghua promises the best jobs, but I’m not so confident.” Pressured by the white-hot competition, many first-time job seekers are not taking less-than-ideal jobs while keeping one eye open for better opportunities.
Zhang Juan, an English major from Qingdao University in Shandong Province, has had four jobs in 14 months. “Each time I felt I made great strides forward from where I had begun,” she said. “Hopping between jobs is good for my career development.” Zhang said she is quite happy with her present job at PetroChina in Qingdao. “The company offers ample training to employees and will hopefully entitle me to permanent residency in Qingdao,” said Zhang, who comes from Xinjiang in northwest China.
Graduate school: two-year reprieve?
Although no official figures are available, the Ministry of Education predicts at least 5 percent of last year’s university graduates did not even look for jobs. Many of them eschewed the cut-throat job market and sought a “two-year reprieve” by studying for a graduate degree. “You can sharpen your competitive edge and knowledge by studying for a higher degree. More importantly, those two years give you much-needed breathing space to sit back, relax and ponder what you really want from life and how to achieve your goals,” said Li Wen, 22, who plans to major in journalism at Fudan University’s School of Communications.
Yet in a country with 1.3 billion people and only about 1,500 higher-learning institutions, competition for a seat in graduate school can be as fierce as the hunt for a job.
A record 1.27 million people sat for the national graduate school
entrance exam last month, up 9 percent over last year’s 1.17 million. About half of the candidates were new graduates. But colleges, universities and research institutions across the country will recruit only 344,000 graduate students in 2006, which means nearly 75 percent of the applicants will have to come up with another life plan.
Even for those who succeed, a master’s degree is not always a passport to success. “Many employers value firsthand work experience more than degrees,” says Professor Huang Mingdong, vicepresident of Wuhan University’s Education Science Institute. “It’s crucial to be sober-minded and know where you stand: if you’re academically inclined then go on to graduate school, otherwise, you might as well take a job and learn practical skills.”