China is struggling to fill the huge gap between the number of graduates and jobs available
The huge gap between the number of graduates, jobs available for educated employees and China's "hukou" system are leading to further unemployment and increasing numbers of poor workers crowding China's cities.
Since China's former leader Jiang Zemin implemented a plan to enhance higher education in 1998, the growth rate of graduates in the labor market has soared every year. According to a survey conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the number of graduates grew by 30% over ten years.
Even though graduates are more educated than migrant labors in manufacturing factories, they were still taken as outsiders by city people. Another factor for Chinese people in securing good employment is "guanxi" rather than their education or degree. Migrant workers, either uneducated or educated ones, lack political and economic connections to elite groups and therefore it is hard for them to access job opportunities.
Surprised by the large crowds at job fairs, Zhou Qi, a student who will graduate this summer, has decided to pursue graduate studies while editing a film he made in his free time. He hates the idea of working for a pittance and is not eager to earn his own living, because he can fall back on his parents, both of whom have jobs with adequate salaries.
To be accepted by a graduate school, Zhou will have to pass a rigorous entrance examination. The Ministry of Education said there are 1.65 million taking the exam this year, 160,000 more than the previous year. Only one-third will succeed.
The competition could have been even more intense if many university graduates had not chosen to study overseas.
Si Yilei, director of the ministry's National Center for Human Resources, said besides the job fairs, the ministry would also provide consultations on job-hunting, give guidance and training to the graduates who choose to start their own business, and establish a database of unemployed graduates.
Traditionally, education is the only way for the poor to lift their social and economic status but now in China it is a liability. For those poor families and they even did not aware too much about the uselessness of education.
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