[photopress:MBA_Wu_Xuming.jpg,full,alignright]Wang Xuming, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education and shown here, said almost 30% of this year’s university graduates had failed to find a job by the end of September.
Five million students graduated this year, but 1.44 million of them are still unemployed.
Slightly worrying is that according to ministry statistics the number of unemployed graduates has been increasing year by year. In 2001, there were 340,000, last year there were 1.24 million. (This, of course, can be partly explained by the increase in number of those who are going to universities.)
For those who have found a job, 40.7% work for private or foreign-funded companies, while 0.4% set up their own companies.
Wang Xuming said, ‘Many university leavers have chosen to work at grassroots level because of government policies such as waiving the debts of graduates willing to work in the country’s rural and western regions.’
Some 580,000 of last year’s graduates found county- or village-level jobs, and more than 550,000 secured work in central and western regions.
In the past, few graduates would have welcomed such work. Most graduates still prefer jobs in large cities.
A survey by the Democratic League in Beijing of more than 1,200 fresh graduates from 20 universities in the capital found:
92% of the native Beijingers did not want to work outside the city.
62% of non-natives also wanted to stay.
So why is there this problem of finding jobs? Partly it is the increase in students graduating. A program launched in 1999 aimed at increasing student recruitment has been blamed for increasing the pressure on the job market. In the first year of the campaign alone, enrollments swelled by 520,000 students nationwide.
Another reason is expectations. Hong Chengwen, a management professor at Beijing Normal University, said, ‘Because many graduates only focus on jobs with high salaries and direct links to their specialties, they miss other good work opportunities.
‘But we need not be too pessimistic over the job situation as more opportunities will be created in the future. Self-employment and the new focus on vocational education should help people find jobs.’
Source: China View
You must log in to post a comment.