As youth unemployment rises in China, pressure on colleges mounts

Global Courant

At this year’s commencement ceremony for Chongqing Metropolitan College of Science and Technology in southwest China, graduating class members did not receive the usual lofty message to pursue their dreams. Instead, they got a hard dose of reality.

“You shouldn’t aim too high or be picky about work,” said Huang Zongming, the president of the university, to more than 9,000 graduates in June. “The opportunities are fleeting.”

A record number of Chinese graduates are entering the labor market, exacerbating the already bleak employment outlook for the country’s youth. The confluence deepens one of the most persistent problems preventing the world’s second-largest economy from regaining its vibrancy.

China’s unemployment rate for 16-24 year olds in urban areas hit a record 21.3 percent in June. July numbers are expected to be even higher as the next wave of graduates officially transitions from student to job seeker.

Government policymakers struggling to address the problem are now leaning on colleges to do more to find graduate jobs. School administrators’ job performance was already linked to the percentage of their students who find employment after graduation. Now top school officials are encouraged to visit companies to discover opportunities. In some cases, scrutiny is so intense that students resort to fabricating job postings to placate school officials.

Over the past three decades, as China’s economy grew in leaps and bounds, more people went to university, seeing it as a stepping stone to a promising career. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the number of students enrolling in colleges and universities has increased from 754,000 in 1992 to 10.1 million in 2022.

This year’s estimated graduating class of 11.6 million students is expected to be the largest ever, and future classes are expected to be even larger. At the same time, the economy is no longer growing as it used to.

The youth unemployment problem may not ease for the next decade, with potentially greater implications for the country’s leadership, he said June report of the China Macroeconomy Forum, a think tank with Renmin University of China.

“If not managed properly, it causes social problems other than the economy, and can even ignite the fuse of political problems,” the report said.

Youth unemployment in China has doubled over the past four years, a period of economic volatility due to Beijing’s “zero Covid” measures that have left companies wary of hiring.

In addition, government crackdowns and tighter oversight have subdued once-vibrant industries such as online education, technology and real estate – areas where young people had flocked for jobs.

As of 2020, Alibaba, one of China’s largest technology companies, was targeted for government surveillance. Last year, the company reduced its workforce by about 11,700, or about 5 percent of its workforce, according to a report released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a body that works under the Chinese State Council.

And as more young people have completed higher education, there has been a mismatch between the jobs they want and what is available. The Chinese economy has not created enough of the high-paying white-collar jobs that many college graduates seek, increasing competition for the most appealing positions.

After economic growth slowed significantly in the second quarter, Beijing published a Package of 31 points of policies and support measures in July that encourage private companies to add jobs.

In a May report on youth unemployment in China said Goldman Sachs young people were particularly vulnerable to losing their jobs or not getting hired in times of economic downturn because they had less work experience.

In June, China’s Ministry of Education told schools and local officials to help graduates find jobs “with a sense of duty and urgency,” citing the concern of the Communist Party and top government leaders.

The ministry also told Communist Party officials and school administrators to do so visit companies to search for vacancies for students in majors with low employment rates. In Hunan Province, the education department recently issued a notice that requires schools to provide a statement if more than 20 percent of graduates find part-time or freelance work instead of full-time employment. Sichuan Province said its colleges would consider canceling majors with a low employment rate for two consecutive years.

The message increasingly being passed on to young people is that they shouldn’t be too selective when choosing a job and that getting through tough times builds character. Xi Jinping, the country’s supreme leader, said young people should strive to work and learn in difficult and remote areas “eating bitterness”, a Chinese expression that endures hardship. But even becoming a junior civil servant is more challenging these days, with far more people taking the entrance exam than there are jobs available.

College administrators feel the pressure to fulfill government work mandates.

“The superiors are putting pressure on the schools and the schools are only putting pressure on the staff,” said Emma Zhu, a career counselor at a university in Zhejiang province.

Stella Xu, who works as a career counselor at a university in Hubei province, said her boss handed out rankings of each counselor’s employment figures and asked them to provide updates on job openings at each monthly meeting.

“You’re putting an invisible pressure on yourself,” said Ms Xu, who said she had a “pretty good” employment rate after advising more than 250 college graduates this year. “It would look bad if you were too far behind others.”

Ms. Xu said that when visiting companies, she tried to persuade employers to hire more graduates than they were looking for. She said she urged her students to get job offers quickly and told them to submit a job offer to the school before graduation.

“I’m just really worried every day about why some students haven’t gotten jobs,” she said.

As the pressure on universities of applied sciences increases, students and administrators are taking extreme measures.

On Taobao, a Chinese e-commerce site, a salesperson sells fictitious job offers from a manufacturing company with a company seal and registration number on them for $17. In addition to providing the document, the seller will also respond to confirmation calls from the school or a local education department.

Jessamine Wang, 23, who graduated in financial management from a university in Chengdu, southwest China, decided to take the civil service exam after unsuccessfully applying for more than 100 jobs. Her career advisor urged her to submit a bogus job offer from a company anyway, threatening to undermine her chances of getting a government job if she didn’t. Ms. Wang said she had refused.

Lucia Xu, 22, gave her career counselor a bogus job offer at a construction company where a friend of the family worked. She plans to take her final exams this winter and won’t be looking for a job while she studies for the tests.

“If you don’t draw one, they will harass you more and more,” said Ms. Xu. “The closer graduation gets, the harder they press.”

As youth unemployment rises in China, pressure on colleges mounts

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