JULY is approaching and millions of college graduates will bid farewell to campus life and seek their first jobs. This year is said to be the toughest in decades for graduates. After spending more than half of their four-year college under the grip of the COVID pandemic, they are dealt with a double whammy upon graduation: a sharply increasing number of job seekers coupled with a shrinking job market.
In 2022, China is seeing the largest ever number of college graduates: 10.76 million, 1.67 million more than last year, amid a slow employment market badly affected by a balking economy as a result of the persistence of the pandemic and a turbulent international situation. Such depressing news that even internet giants such as Alibaba and Tencent are laying off employees in large numbers has disheartened the rookie jobseekers.
An employment survey circulated online taken by the graduates of 2022 from the East China University of Politics Science and Law reveals a bleak picture. Of the 4,750 graduates of the university, only 802 had received job offers as of late May, less than 20% of the total. Although the figures don’t include the number of graduates who chose to further their study with master’s or doctorate programs or to be self-employed, it is indisputable that jobs are much more difficult to come by.
Four decades ago, college graduates were in hot demand. When I graduated from college in 1982, a bachelor’s degree was recognized as rare and precious, for China’s higher education had virtually been on hold for 10 years during the “Cultural Revolution” and for the first few years after the end of it, universities and colleges had only turned out several hundred thousand graduates each year.
Years of large-scale college enrollment expansion since 1999 has reversed the supply-demand ratio, creating a surplus of graduates and a scarcity of jobs, especially jobs that the young are willing to take.
The fact is, while millions of graduates are struggling with job-hunting, many jobs are begging for applicants in manufacturing, construction and other sectors.
According to a report jointly conducted by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and Alibaba Group in July 2020, by 2025 there will be 30 million job openings available in emerging career fields, including 1.5 million in cloud computing, 5 million in the internet of things (IoT), 1 million in drone operations, 3.5 million in e-sports, 1.5 million in agricultural management, 5 million in AI, 1.3 million in construction information modeling, 1.25 million in industrial robotics, and 2 million in digital management, and more in other booming new sectors. There will be at least 10 million vacancies because of a shortage of qualified applicants.
The colleges have failed to train graduates who are qualified in the fields most in demand by the market.
The curricula settings in most Chinese colleges have failed to keep up with the time and reflect the actual demands of the job market.
To address this problem, we need to train more young talents to work with a creative mind and possess practical skills. Universities and colleges need to readjust their majors and curricula settings in response to new demands.
A little-known university has been exploring approaches of training talents that the job market needs. The University of Sanya, located in the scenic city of Sanya in Hainan Province, is invested in and run by Geely, one of China’s major automakers. Serving the auto-making industry, the school offers training in modern service, financial digitization, urban management, and auto industrial digitization. The university’s data shows that since 2009, the employment rate of its graduates has stood at about 97%.
Students need also to focus on promising careers in manufacturing and other sectors rather than trying to find an office job in big cities.
(The author is an English tutor and freelance writer.)