No bed of roses for job-hunters
Print Edition
CAO Ran, a postgraduate student in Beijing, is one of the best students in his class, but his good scores are not getting him a job offer.
Cao graduates next summer, and has been busy looking for jobs in the past few months.
“I have been sending out resumes at job fairs since July when the semester started, but four months have passed and I have not received a single interview,” he said. “There are just not enough posts this year. Fewer companies are hiring compared to last year.”
Cao majored in chemical engineering at China University of Petroleum.
“I thought I was good, but there are many Chinese graduates from abroad who are also looking for jobs in Beijing. Competition is unimaginable,” he said.
Pressure has been mounting on new graduates as the job-hunting season starts across the country amid a tepid economy and with companies having slashed posts.
Li Hu, a student of public management at Renmin University of China, has found a job at a training firm.
“The salary is fine, in this economy, but there is no hukou (household registration), which means I cannot buy an apartment here (Beijing) and in the future my children cannot go to school here. So I am still looking for better opportunities because I want to settle here,” he said.
Unlike Li, many graduates choose to leave Beijing and look for jobs elsewhere.
Starting this year, Beijing has been capping its population as it pushes forward the integration plan of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. The capital has been moving out labor-intensive and polluting industries such as real estate construction, steel and coal.
“Years ago, at least 60 percent of our graduates had their first jobs in Beijing, but the percentage is less than half now,” said Lu Yuan, a teacher at the employment center at Peking University.
“The outflow of graduates has been more voluntary in recent years as students evade the high-cost, high-pressure lifestyle in Beijing. Meanwhile, we are also advising and assisting students to seek jobs in other cities,” she said.
In 2016, there were 7.65 million new college graduates in China. Only about 80 percent of them found jobs immediately on graduation. Figures from the Ministry of Education show there will be more than 7.95 million graduates in 2017.
According to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, around 15 million young people will join the urban labor force each year between 2016 and 2020. College graduates represent the majority of the new job hunters.
China faces a confounding mismatch of labor oversupply and structural shortages. Skilled workers are in short supply, while general labor forces are at a surplus.
Yao Xianguo, director of the public policy institute at Zhejiang University, said more jobs will be created as China steps up industrial upgrading.
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