Count Them In Or Out? China's Next Generation Of Job Hunters

By Yang Dongping. Ever since 2002, when the first batch of students graduated after national expansion of university enrollment, the difficulty for educated young people to find employment has become a hot topic each summer. The total number of graduates has grown every year. With 6.99 million fresh graduates this year, the number is hitting another record high.
The market needs time to absorb this sudden growth of employment demand. Though it isn't easy, the situation isn't as serious as it is sometimes presented. Based on the experience of the past decade, the growing number of China's college graduates has been largely absorbed into the workforce. So why the annual alarm and panic about the job hunt for these young people? A part of the explanation, I believe, is a faulty method for calculating the unemployment statistics. The alarm has always been sounded around March or April because the universities have started assessing their students' employment rate. Nothing is more absurd than a student who is pressed to sign up for a job before he even walks out of college. Read more...