FIVE MILLION IN JOB LINE!

Amber Butler-Davis (Staff Reporter)

5 MILLION IN THE JOB LINE!

Could being a College Graduate really be that tough?

If you are a college graduate next year I hope for your sake you already have a job lined up. Throughout China, there will be at least 5.5 million graduates eager to enter into workforce next year, that is 13 percent more than last year.

These students will definitely feel the pressure when trying to secure their perfect job because they will also have to compete with the 700,000 graduates who could not find work in the last year.

Carol Cai, an employee of British market research company TNS told the China Daily how the number of new recruits in the job industry has halved and now most of the positions are only advertising for experienced applications. These pose of rather large problem to the college graduates of 2008. Unless they have some experience in the work place finding a job in their field of study could be tricky.

Students are now being advised to major in more than one field. Education officials have said it will be more beneficial to learn a range of skills rather then concentrating on the ever so popular ones such as banking, finance and trade.

Xiao Jiang, a finance major from Zhejiang University has applied for nearly 20 job positions as research analyst for multinational companies, non-profit organisations and private enterprises. He told the China Daily how even trying to get an interview is a tough enough job itself. Xiao has now stopped questioning wether his studies matches his dream job. The only thing Xiao is concerned about the moment is if he will ever find a job.

Students are already starting to think about staying at College to continue their studies and obtain a higher degree of education. The only problem with this idea is that they will probably encounter the same situation they are in now but with even more competitors.

Students today need to realise that being smart on paper and being smart in the work environment is not the same. There is only so much one can learn from a book in the end they will need to find common sense somewhere. For at least one semester these students should stop relying on a text book and do an internship in a company that is in their field of study. It may only be a short time in the work force but at least it might give them the upper hand when they apply for a job that another 10,000 students are trying to get.

On the other hand, they are running for the hills, literally. Wang Xuming, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education in trying to encourage college graduates to apply for jobs in the Western and rural areas. Already over 20,000 students have signed up to work in the countryside either specialising in education, agriculture and poverty alleviation. Other students have also opted to work in Sichuan, Shaanxi and the Chongquig municipality, regions that were hit by the May 12 quake.

Surprisingly, those students that do opt to work in a rural region for over two years will enjoy favourable treatment in recruitment for government organs and State enterprises. These students will also receive bonus points if they decide to take the civil service exams.

So, the choices our graduates face today are either staying at College longer and becoming a permanent student, fighting the masses for that dream job or working in the countryside. And if those three options don’t work for them, then I guess we will be seeing a lot of local businesses popping up in the near future.