China's State Council issued a circular recently to encourage college graduates to seek jobs in grass roots to release the employment pressure in big cities and to satisfy the hunger for professionals in the comparatively poor areas.
  
The number of college graduates increased from over one million in 1999 to 3.38 million in 2005. As a result, many graduates failed to find jobs in the recent years in big cities while higher educated professionals are badly needed in the country's comparatively backward areas, particularly the west of China.
  
Therefore, the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, the Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of Education jointly elaborated the circular and studied implementation measures.
 
Referring to the implementation of the circular, the senior officials of the organization department and the two ministries told Xinhua that that college graduate's employment channels are very unbalanced. Many students prefer higher level jobs such as at big or medium sized companies, colleges or universities, research institutions, while at the grass-roots level, especially those under the county level, see very few college graduate applications.
  
The reasons causing the problems are many, and include the income gap between developed regions and underdeveloped ones, the immature employment modes of small companies which make some graduates feel insecure, the lagging classes or majors of higher education institutions and the obsolete ideas of some parents who think only developed areas offer bright futures for their kids.
  
In solving these problems, the circular said that within three or five years, each village or community should have at least one college graduate nationwide, higher learning institutions should adjust their curriculums or majors according to socioeconomic developing trends, and job-orientation training for vocational schools should be encouraged.
  
In order to encourage people to work in western or remote areas, the circular sets up a flexible identity registration system to dispel graduates' worries of not being able to go back big cities later on. And the government promises to support those working in grass roots with special funds.
  
As for small companies, the country vows to step up legal supervision, especially of their insurance systems, to protect graduate's rights. The government will also offer preferential bank loans to the graduates who start their own businesses as well as issue tax reduction or exemption policies to them.
  
Though it will be a long term task, the three departments vowed to firmly implement these proposals by sending supervision groups to concerned institutions or areas and guiding graduates by media influence.

(Xinhua News Agency July 14, 2005)