Chinese fresh grads face 'complex, arduous' job hunt as record 9m graduates in 2021

As a record 9 million students graduate from Chinese universities in 2021, it is expected that their journey to job searches will be "complex, arduous."

Despite the fact that the job market remains difficult, the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China said at a press conference on Thursday that all departments will work closely to ensure secure jobs.

Observers point out that, while China's working-age population continues to decrease, there will be no labor shortage in the near future, and young people will continue to face significant job challenges, reports Global Times.

According to the Ministry of Education, a total of 9.09 million college students are projected to graduate this year, an increase of 350,000 over 2020.

The ministry has been working to secure jobs for the incoming graduates since September 2020. The annual civil servant recruitment process has been accelerated by around two months and is scheduled to be completed in July.

The strain is also being relieved by state-owned enterprises. According to the press conference, these businesses are providing a total of 589,000 jobs for this year's graduates.

The role of tertiary institutes as talent "reservoirs" will be used to moderately expand the scale of enrollment for graduate students and undergraduates. 

Major colleges and universities are expanding their enrollment to absorb more graduates who wish to study further, and this can also ease the employment pressure.

In 2020, the Ministry of Education, together with nine social recruitment agencies, launched an online recruitment service platform for graduates. In 2021, the upgraded platform has so far displayed 14.51 million job openings and received 37.63 million resumes from 2021 college graduates.

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 has been called "the most difficult employment season in China's history." Observers noted to the Global Times that the negative impact of the epidemic on employment will continue in 2021.

The seventh national census data released on Tuesday showed that the size of China's labor force and its proportion of the total population are both continuing to decline, but experts pointed out that the employment pressure on young people is still huge.

Tong Yufen, a professor at the Population and Economics Institute of the Capital University of Economics and Business, said that China's sustained economic growth and its level of development in recent years may actually reduce the absorption of labor in various sectors, further increasing the employment pressure on young people.

"According to the demand level of the labor force, the quality of the labor force should be improved, workers' relevant skills and knowledge in various industries should be increased, and the spatial distribution of the labor force should be rationally guided," Tong said at a seminar on Tuesday.