Job seekers consult recruiters about job information at a job fair held for fresh graduates in North China's Tianjin municipality, March 14, 2015.（You Sixing /Xinhua)
Many colleges and universities are producing graduates in industries with little demand for new workers, according to a report released on Tuesday.
Beijing-based employment consultancy Newjincin Research Institute said in its report that the employment rate three months after graduation for those who with a masters or higher degree is nearly 95 percent. Employment for university undergraduates is 89.6 percent and for college graduates it is 89.4 percent.
However, not all majors are paying back the students' investment. The report said majors including political science and public administration, urban and rural planning and resource management, and material chemistry received negative comments from students for the low employment rate, poor salary standard, and little relevance of majors and career.
It was suggested that majors including tourism management, teaching Chinese as foreign language and metal materials engineering control the number of students enrolled due to little market demand as well as education quality.
Other majors, including software engineering, information security and auditing were given suggestions to expand their enrollments to meet growing market demand.
Zhang Jingxiu, executive director of the consultancy, said many students attached more attention to the selection of majors, however, many failed to figure out the real employment situation.
Wu Yan, director of the Higher Education Evaluation Center, an institute under the Ministry of Education, said in April that Chinese universities have failed to meet the market demands by adjusting majors in universities and colleges. "This is not only a problem faced by China. It happens around the world."
The Ministry of Education said that it would monitor the employment rate of majors and cut enrollment and in majors that have failed to meet 60 percent employment for two years.
Zhang said the reason behind the long-running problem is the isolation of Ministry of Education from the job market.
"The ministry has insufficient understanding of the job market. It can't adjust to market changes in a timely fashion. However, I think there have been improvements," said Zhang.
"China's higher education system has too many majors targeting only a small range of jobs. This means we are cultivating talent only for few positions. These group of graduates could not adjust flexibly to the changing market," added Zhang. "Some universities have changed their tactic to cultivate generalists. I think it is a good approach."
