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| Chinese Graduates Struggling with Slim Job Market |
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The year's first recruitment fair in Ji Rentai was still trying to strike up a conservation with the manager of a Beijing-based technology firm, but his sixth attempt to fix an interview that day failed again. "They said I don't have the experience, but that's unfair," said the e-commerce major who graduated from a local IT institute last summer. "They are expecting too much from new graduates." Ji chose e-commerce out of his love for computers, but the underdeveloped Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region offers far fewer jobs in the sector compared with the increasing number of new graduates in recent years. A year after he began to seriously look for a job, Ji is still unemployed. He joined a local network company last September, but the job lasted for only four months. "The boss said they didn't need so many people." Despite his frustrating experience, Ji is unwilling to become a salesman, a job that is more available in the regional capital In The white-hot competition has forced many students to buy expensive clothing and even receive plastic surgery in order to stand out in the large crowd of job seekers. A college graduate in the southwestern The girl, named Jingzi, attended extracurricular English, computer and accounting courses, sat for an English proficiency test and got a driving license, which she hoped would bring more job opportunities. She traveled to five provinces last year to attend their recruitment tests for public servants, with each trip costing more than 2,000 yuan. Jingzi was lucky: upon her graduation last summer she found a white-collar job in About 30 percent, or 1.2 million, of last year's 4.13 million college graduates did not find a job upon graduation, according to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security. This surplus of laborers has somehow allowed the employers to be more picky in hiring people. Wang Lin, a senior finance student in In The recruitment officer called the next day to tell him he failed in the test. "He didn't say why, but I guess it was because I didn't do well enough at the dinner table -- I wasn't prepared for that and I never learned to drink." The glut of graduates has also caused some employers to underuse well-educated people, said Zheng Gongcheng, a "Some Chinese banks, for example, hire master degree holders to work as tellers," he said. "It's a waste of human resources and disrupts the order of the job market -- where can they put people with lower degrees then?" The draft law prohibits discrimination against job seekers despite their ethnicity, race, gender, religious belief, age or physical disability. It also requires governments above county level to establish early warning systems to prevent and control large-scale unemployment. Meanwhile, experts say schools should adapt their courses to the job market demands and help students with more convincing career plans instead of just cramming for exams. Xue Ying, president of Beijing IMAP Education Research Institute, said career planning should start in senior high school, before a student decides his area of study at college. "We found at least 40 percent of university students are unhappy with their majors, and 65 percent said they'd switch majors if they were allowed." Under the current education system, 280 majors are for science students choose and 160 ones for arts students. Once they have been admitted, it's extremely difficult for them to switch majors unless they retake the college entrance exam. "It's important to help students recognize their own professional aptitude at an earlier age so they can fully exploit their talents," said Xue, whose institute offers professional aptitude tests to people of all ages and gives professional recruitment advice to graduates. (Xinhua News Agency March 17, 2007) |
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