Statistics from the Guangdong Education Bureau (GEB) show at least 40,000 graduates will find it really hard to get jobs in 2003 and 2004, even if the province can maintain its high employment rate of 80 percent, a figure much higher than the national rate of 58.5 percent.

Local analysts predict the amount of jobless graduates will continue to grow because universities and colleges are intending to enroll more students in the new century.

“This brings a new and severe challenge to the educational and labor departments. Efforts must be made to ease the pressure and the potential social instability,” said Vice-Governor Lu Zhonghe.

During the first half of this year, the GEB plans to hold a provincial recruitment fair every month to help the 90,000 or so graduates find jobs.

A permanent job center will be set up in Guangzhou to collect and distribute as much information as possible for employers and students.

Sixty percent of graduates from normal schools will be forced to find work teaching in schools in their hometowns.

“In the long term, the universities and colleges should improve their student services and play a more active role in helping the students,” said Li Xiaolu, deputy director-general of GEB.

He pointed to the expanding college enrolment and the shrinking job market as the main causes of oversupply.

After 1999’s 20 percent expansion, universities and colleges in Guangdong recruited 42.8 percent more students in 2000.

The record recruitment of 120,000 freshers was twice as many as in 1997, but the number of job opportunities traditionally offered in government departments and state-owned enterprises has been on the downturn since 1998 when Guangdong reorganized its departments and cut the state-owned sector by 30 percent.

Many students are turning to the non-state-owned sector, but without a well-developed welfare system, this surging market has absorbed only 35 percent of the students at most.

“The students need to change their attitudes towards jobs in private enterprises or in the countryside,” Li said.

He warned the employment crisis will become more severe if students are looking for life-long, secure jobs as their parents did.

(Xinhua 02/08/2001)