>> Chinese Paradox -- Jobs scarce for recent graduates in "booming" China
>>
>> Jobs scarce for China's graduates
>> Each year millions of new degree holders vie for few openings. Some
>> blame official policy.
>> By Mitchell Landsberg, Times Staff Writer
>> 3:07 AM PST, December 28, 2006
>>
>> BEIJING - For the better part of a 20-hour journey, Yu Meng had slept as
>> the train jostled and rolled across the north of China.
>>
>> A broad-faced, cheerful 26-year-old graduate student in chemistry, she
>> had come from remote Gansu province to attend a job fair in the capital.
>> Now, still bundled in a knee-length brown parka, a clutch of resumes in
>> her hand, she was trying to elbow her way to the front of a recruiting
>> booth - one of hundreds sprawled across the vast interior of the
>> capital's China International Exhibition Center.
>>
>> ADVERTISEMENT
>>
>> Around her swirled thousands of other recent and upcoming college
>> graduates from all over China, all competing for a limited pool of jobs.
>> It was a graduate's nightmare that mirrored a national problem: too many
>> people, too few jobs.
>>
>> Figures vary, but the size of China's higher education system appears to
>> have at least quadrupled in the last decade as the nation has pushed
>> relentlessly toward building a modern economy. Next spring, Chinese
>> colleges and universities expect a record 4.95 million graduates, up
>> 820,000 from this year.
>>
>> More than a million of them will wind up jobless, according to
>> estimates. The glut is leading students and colleges to what might be
>> considered acts of desperation.
>>
>> In Guangzhou recently, 286 graduates and post-graduates competed for 11
>> positions as street cleaners, according to the official New China News
>> Agency. The city hired one candidate with a PhD, four with master's
>> degrees and six with bachelor's degrees.
>>
>> "Given the already grave employment situation in the country ... the
>> employment pressure on university graduates will be obvious," Wang
>> Xuming, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education, said at a recent news
>> conference.
>>
>> All of which is causing an air of concern among students.
>>
>> The dilemma facing Chinese students is hardly unique. Through the ebb
>> and flow of the business cycle, American college students have long been
>> accustomed to the idea that a degree doesn't necessarily guarantee them
>> a job - at least not right away. But in a country where, not so long
>> ago, the communist state guaranteed everyone employment, however lousy,
>> it is a new and unsettling reality.
>>
>> "People's hopes are very gloomy - all of us job seekers," said Zhao
>> Xiaojuan, a 22-year-old who is about to graduate with a degree in
>> English from the Hubei University of Technology in Tienjin. "If you're
>> lucky, maybe you have a chance to be interviewed." Zhao aspires to work
>> as a translator or executive assistant in a multinational company.
>>
>> Some employers and economists, however, say the problem is one of rising
>> expectations. It's not that there are no jobs available, it's that
>> students are holding out for the good ones. They should be more patient,
>> this line of thinking goes, and willing to settle for something less
>> than their dream job at first.
>>
>> "A college education is a long-term investment," said Tang Min, the
>> chief China economist for the Asian Development Bank. "You have to think
>> about your lifetime."
>>
>> Tang, who wrote a report in 1998 calling for a major expansion of the
>> Chinese higher educational system, has been criticized as the architect
>> of the current glut. He says he has no regrets, even when faced with a
>> recent report saying that two-thirds of last year's college graduates
>> are earning less than $250 a month. That, he said, is double what a high
>> school graduate can expect to earn in China, and the gap is almost
>> certain to grow as graduates climb the career ladder.
>>
>> "What I tell those young people is, 'Don't worry. You'll not regret
>> having gone to college.... Wait 10 years, and then compare yourself to
>> those people who didn't go to college,' " Tang said.
>>
>> Several universities have recently added golf to their curriculums in
>> hopes of turning out graduates who have what it takes to schmooze
>> prospective employers in a country where golf is a fairly new executive
>> pursuit. Xiamen University in southeastern China even made the sport
>> mandatory for freshmen in some degree programs.
>>
>> Some say what is needed are more students with skills that match the job
>> market. Employers say students are often not qualified for the available
>> job openings and blame the university system for failing to adapt to the
>> nation's new economy.
>>
>> "They teach you a lot of theory," said Phoebe Li, human resources
>> manager for Intouch Software in Beijing, a growing software developer.
>> "They don't put it much into practice."
>>
>> Partly in response to those critics, the government recently announced a
>> major initiative to increase vocational education over the next five years.
>>
>> In the meantime, the students at the job fair had neither shop classes
>> nor nine irons to give them a leg up. They had to rely on resumes and
>> sheer grit.
>>
>> When Yu Meng reached the front of the Administration of Environmental
>> Protection booth, she faced the recruiter. He was looking for chemists.
>>
>> "Do you hire graduates fresh out of school?" Yu asked.
>>
>> "We like to have people with work experience," he replied. Seeing her
>> face fall, he quickly added, "But that doesn't mean we don't consider
>> fresh graduates."
>>
>> "Would you please take a look at my resume?" she asked. She slipped it
>> in front of him. He gave it a cursory glance, his mouth twisting in
>> disapproval.
>>
>> "You have a chemistry major," he said, "but you don't have any
>> experience in environmental protection."
>>
>> In the end, he agreed to keep the resume but didn't leave Yu with a lot
>> of hope.
>>
>> "I'm pretty worried," she said afterward, standing in an aisle between
>> booths while a sea of anxious job seekers parted around her. "There are
>> a lot of positions on the job market. The problem is, we have way too
>> many graduates."
>>
>> *
>>
>> mitchell.landsberg@
latimes.com>
> Three related articles, posted before:
>
> ====(1)====
>
http://english.people.com.cn/200612/04/eng20061204_328261.html
> UPDATED: 20:12, December 04, 2006
>
> Chinese mainland graduates from Hong Kong universities reluctant to
> return home
>
> Only 2 percent of Chinese mainland graduates from Hong Kong
> universities returned to the mainland to work in 2006, according to a
> survey by the University of Hong Kong.
>
> Forty-six percent of mainland graduates chose to stay in Hong Kong and
> work, 27 percent chose to further their studies at overseas
> universities, 20 percent continued their studies in Hong Kong and 5
> percent worked in foreign countries.
>
> Earning power is the major reason for graduates' reluctance to return
> to the mainland. The average starting salary for graduates in Hong Kong
> is 12,000 Hong Kong dollars (1,500 U.S. dollars); in Beijing it is
> 2,300 yuan (288 U.S. dollars).
>
> Aside from the higher pay, mainland students can obtain permanent
> resident permits after studying and work for seven years in Hong Kong,
> sources with the University of Hong Kong explained.
>
> The number of students applying to study in Hong Kong universities has
> risen rapidly since HK universities were allowed to recruit mainland
> students in 2002. They enrolled 1,300 students from 20 provinces and
> municipalities this year.
>
> This year, eight Hong Kong universities have officially joined the
> mainland's university enrollment system, including the University of
> Hong Kong and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
>
> Source: Xinhua
>
>
> ====(2)====
>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,1931686,00.html
>
> Highlights:
>
> (1) Profit-orientated education authorities had deceived students about
> the value of their diplomas
> (2) Student sez: "We don't know what to do. Many people want to quit
> school."
> (3) According to the investigation, about 20,000 students had been
> recruited in the past three years by promising them diplomas the school
> was not qualified to award."
> (4) "The rapid expansion of higher education has created a glut of
> graduates. Government figures suggest *three out of five* university
> leavers will fail to find a job." (my emphasis)
>
>
> ====(3)====
>
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2006-08/15/content_664943.htm
>
> Highlights:
>
> "The survey, published in yesterday's China Youth Daily,
> showed that 34.7 per cent of the 8,777 respondents said they regretted
> their university experience as what they had learnt was not worth the
> time and money invested.
>
> "Sometimes I feel I have wasted the money my parents earned by the
> sweat of their brows by entering university. I can't make a living from
> what I learnt, let alone repay my parents," said a university graduate
> surnamed Zhao, quoted by the paper.
>
> After graduating from Beijing Agricultural University, Zhao took a job
> as a security guard with a monthly salary of 800 yuan (US$100).
>
> About 51.5 per cent of the respondents said they had learnt nothing
> practical in university and 39.2 per cent said they couldn't land a job
> with a bachelor's degree, the survey said."
