China’s Grads / Only 26 percent of postgraduate and 35 percent of undergraduate students had secured a job by April

This year is said to be the most difficult for college graduates to find a job, especially because of the record number of fresh graduates entering the tough job market.

No broad-based statistics are available, but according to the annual survey of Chinese education consulting company MyCOS, by April, only 26 percent of postgraduate and 35 percent of undergraduate students had secured a job, down 11 and 12 percentage points year-on-year. Latest data from colleges and education authorities are as good as ever but their credibility has been questioned as before because of the problems in the calculation process.

A third-party report on employment pressure shows that college graduates have lowered their salary expectation from about 5,500 yuan ($897) a month in 2011 to about 3,700 yuan. Some news reports, however, say many of them are ready to accept even lower salaries to get a job.

Many Westerners think that Chinese graduates seem to be unduly worried about getting a job when their Western counterparts are suffering because of the slowdown in their economies. The plight of recent Chinese graduates may have been overplayed, to a certain extent, by the mass media, but they certainly have enough reasons to do so.

For decades, college students in China had been assigned jobs upon graduation. The process originated in the planned economy days, and job hunting was not a matter of concern for graduates until the 1990s, when graduates were encouraged to seek employment on their own, which was followed by the increasing number of enrolments in colleges.

Job hunting has become a serious job in itself given the surge in the number of graduates, from only 1.07 million in 2000 to 6.99 million this year. The development has also eroded the value of holding a college degree. With degree holders accounting for a larger share of the population, graduates believe that the job market has got harsher for them.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at 

via Uncertainty dogs grads’ job prospects[1]|chinadaily.com.cn.