More graduates face struggle to find jobs

Only 40 percent of Beijing college students due to graduate this July have found jobs, lower than last year, according to municipal human resource authorities Tuesday.

There will be 220,000 graduates this year, an increase of 7,000 on last year, but only 43.2 percent have found employment or will continue their studies as of May 20. At the same time last year, 50 percent had secured jobs, according to a press release from Beijing Municipal Human Resource and Social Security Bureau Tuesday.

Fu Zhifeng, deputy director of Beijing Municipal Commission of Education, explained the low employment rate this year is because college students are apparently becoming more cautious in signing up for a job, and would wait and see if better opportunities will come up, especially as they will not actually graduate until July, the Beijing Daily reported Tuesday.

There is a great disparity between the top universities and the low level ones. For science- and engineering-based institutions like Beihang University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and Beijing Institute of Technology, the employment rate is over 80 percent, but fewer than 10 percent of upcoming graduates from 12 universities specializing in the arts had found positions.

This may be because many arts graduates chose freelance careers, including performing in pubs or restaurants, according to the Beijing Daily.

Wang Dongwei, who will graduate from the law faculty at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times that he signed up with a government department in Gansu Province, Northwest China, at the end of March.

"I can better develop myself in Gansu as there are fewer skilled people with a high education background than in the capital," Wang said, adding that he had rejected an offer from a court in Beijing.

Wang does not believe students are being cautious or waiting for potentially better prospects, as most of his classmates had found jobs before the Spring Festival.

"We all know famous companies and banks usually recruit employees before the New Year, and there won't be too many good jobs left at this time," Wang said.

As for foreign students who graduate from Chinese universities, there are no official statistics. But according to Qiaobao, a Chinese newspaper in the US, most foreign students who want to stay in China find jobs as English teachers.

This may be because according to Chinese immigration law, foreigners should be over 25 and have worked for two years prior to being granted a work permit. Language schools will often employ younger people on other types of visa, although this is not legal.

Over 290,000 foreign students from 194 countries and regions studied in China in 2011, according to the China Association for International Education.

Zhang Yili, a job consultant from yingjiesheng.com, a job recruitment website for new graduates, told the Global Times that college students have more choices in recent years as the economy is stable, and employers are facing challenges in recruiting new staff.

"More companies launched summer camps to attract interns and find future employees this year," Zhang said, adding he is optimistic about this year's employment market.

The employment rate of new Beijing graduates reached 95 percent for three consecutive years, top of the list among cities nationwide, according to the human resource and social security bureau's press release.

In order to guarantee the employment rate reaches to 95 percent this year, they will organize more job fairs next month.

"Don't worry, the goal of 95 percent is not hard to fulfill," the Beijing Daily quoted Lu Lin, the college students affairs department director of the human resource bureau as saying. He estimated the employment rate will reach 80 percent by July.