MISMATCH
At the same time, multinational companies report a shortage of skilled
workers, leaving China with a mismatch between supply and demand in the labour
market.
New graduates no longer want to work in the heavy industries that fuelled
China's growth a generation ago, but face a service industry and small- and
medium-sized enterprise sector that are too underdeveloped to absorb them.
"The same economic growth cannot provide the same employment it did several
years ago," said Zhang Jian, a senior economist at the Asian Development Bank.
Graduates also often want their first job to be the one they stick with,
fearing that if they move around, they'll lose coveted benefits like pensions
and health care.
Those willing to take risks and strike out on their own are faced with a
banking sector dominated by state banks that are more used to lending to
state-owned enterprises than small business ventures.
"If graduating students want to create their own business, they will find it
difficult to find financial channels -- they can't find capital, they can't get
bank loans" said Zhang.
Twenty-five-year-old Chen Na will soon have her masters degree in journalism.
She has just found a job -- months she says, after most graduating students
-- but the work at English-language teaching supplement is not ideal.
Chen went straight from university to graduate school, and says now she
wonders if she should have had some work experience in between.
"I thought it might be a problem, so while I was studying I took internships
to get some experience. But afterward I discovered when I started looking for
work that some people don't consider that real experience," she said.
MOVE TO THE HINTERLAND?
Her thoughts echo a report last year by McKinsey & Co. that said China's
education system emphasised theory over practical solutions, leaving fewer than
10 percent of job candidates suitable for work in foreign companies as
engineers, accountants, analysts and other careers.
Wary of the potential instability a pool of well-educated, unemployed youth
could have, the government is taking notice.
