Well lately I read another story published here in the Australian press (The Age) that outlines that around one third of recent graduates are struggling to find work in China. The article quotes a representative of the Ministry of Education saying this is the highest rate of unemployment among new graduates since the start of recording statistics in 1996.
So why are these graduates having a tough time finding jobs?
One of the main reasons that graduates are finding it hard to secure graduate jobs in china is the huge growth in the number of graduates completing degrees at Chinese Universities, growing from around 1 million per year in 1998 through to the present 6 million per year in 2009 making competition fierce (check out the picture of a Chinese careers fair on our previous article here).
Some extra insights into this can be found from a chat I had a few weeks ago with a contact, Yvon, who works at an employer branding agency based in the Netherlands who works closely with multi-national graduate employers based in China.
She told me that even though there are so many graduate job hunters out in the market, multi-national companies are still battling to attract the right graduates to their organisations. Yvon mentioned that only around 10% of Chinese graduates have the right skills and academic background to obtain graduate positions in a multi-national organisation and this is backed up by findings from Mckinsey.
The cause seems to largely be from a mis-match between what universities are teaching students and what Chinese employers need from their graduate level employees.
The return of the Sea Turtles
Trends to watch out for are the return of the sea turtles to asia. A sea turtle is a slang name for a Chinese university student studying overseas. The reverse brain drain, the return of the sea turtles to china. Turtle in chinese has the same meaning or is pronounced the same as ‘coming home’.
Poaching graduates from Hong Kong and Singapore where university curriculums are more in tune with what multi-national organisations are looking for. Chinese employers are often facing a vacuum of talent for key positions. Yvon outlined that she has head of fast promotion of through to senior management level for professionals based in Singapore and Hong Kong when they relocate back to China far above where they were operating in their previous roles.
There is also the potential for the focus to turn to Chinese university students completing degrees in countries like Australia and New Zealand and try to lure them back to China.
This week I was reading a story published on News.com.au about how difficult graduate jobs have been to find this year in Australia compared to a year ago. The sectors the article outlines as being hardest hit have been Accounting, Finance and Mining, with graduate job hunters now being lucky to receive a single job offer this year as opposed to potentially having multiple offers in these sectors in the previous few years.
This got me thinking about the state of the graduate jobs market in other areas of the world and the biggest market that popped into my mind to investigate was China.
The state of the Graduate Jobs Market in China
The scale of Graduate Job hunters in China is just immense. There are approximately 6 million graduates finishing university every year making it extremely competitive amongst Chinese graduates fighting for a declining number of graduate jobs. The Chinese government has been implementing an initiative to increase the levels of education of the Chinese people however their economy is still largely focused around manufacturing which combined with the economic downturn is making it hard for graduates leaving university to find work.
Things sound like they are going to be getting more difficult for Chinese graduates in years to come as well. On top of there being 6 million new graduates finishing university each year, there is a hangover of 1 million graduates from the previous year who still have not found work, as well as another 3 million graduates from years before still looking for work. An article from the Wall Street Journal shows that in the last 10 years there has been an increase in the number of Chinese university students of about 1 – 2 million per year so the shortage of graduate positions is likely to grow. The growth in student numbers is also proving to be a problem as faculties are not growing at the same speed making it more difficult to provide a high level of education to the increased student base.
Some Strange Hurdles for Chinese Graduate Job Hunters…
Some of the requirements for a graduate job in China can also be challenging. One conversation at a careers fair for a graduate technology sales role had a sign posted next to the stand outlining a height requirement of 172cm for men and 162cm for women in order to be eligible for the position. The sign also stated that applicants must be ‘attractive’. When a graduate approached the company representative he was then asked ‘how much can you drink’ as drinking in the sales process is very important in Chinese culture. The interested graduate then said ‘well I can drink 3 or 4 beers in a sitting no problem’ to which the company representative replied ‘I’m not interested in how many beers you can drink, I’m talking hard liquor here’.
Chinese Government Graduate Jobs
Due to the shortage of positions there has also been a huge increase in the number of applications to work for the Chinese Government and by increase I mean there have been an additional 130,000 applications made by graduates bringing the total number of applications to 775,000 in 2008. These applications have been made for only 13,500 graduate jobs so there is only 1 job per 60 or so applicants.
So in short the global economy is making things tough in Australia for Graduate Job hunters but spare a thought for the millions of Chinese grads struggling to find work over the next few years. Check out the video below if you can for some extra info on the subject provided by the Guardian newspaper.
Daniel Purchas
