This year, 12.22 million college graduates will enter the society in China, a record high. The rising number of graduates has intensified the competition for jobs. Internship positions in enterprises require five rounds of interviews, and those who fail to find a job have to turn to factories to do work unrelated to their majors. All signs indicate that the labor market is oversupplied. Although the government has introduced policies to promote employment, such as flexible employment and vocational training, some job seekers believe that these measures are difficult to meet actual needs. Analysis points out that the core of the employment problem lies in the shortage of jobs, and only economic recovery can truly ease the pressure.

Milan (pseudonym), who had just started school, returned to the university classroom in Shenzhen, but she did not look relaxed and happy as she had been after the winter vacation. As she was about to graduate, she had been busy with interviews at various companies throughout the vacation, and she deeply felt the fierce competition for jobs.

Milan recalled that she went through five rounds of interviews to get an internship position at a well-known Internet game company. "Everyone has become accustomed to involution." She said that in the Chinese game industry, five rounds of interviews are the norm, and formal positions generally require eight to ten rounds of assessment. "I was only accepted if everyone in the business line thought I was OK. Now there are very few people to work for and many job seekers. Thousands of people are competing for two positions, so the selection process has become very strict." She said.

The "most difficult year for employment" is coming again

Milan's job-hunting pressure is just a microcosm of the tens of millions of fresh graduates. Wang Xiaoping, Minister of Human Resources and Social Security of China, pointed out at the National People's Congress press conference on livelihood issues on March 9 that the number of fresh college graduates this year reached 12.22 million, an increase of 430,000 from 2024, setting a historical high. The total employment pressure has not decreased, and structural contradictions have become more prominent.

Milan told VOA: "Education has depreciated. If I have an undergraduate degree, there are many graduate students competing for the same position as me, and there are also many people who studied abroad. The second is that people don't have the patience to train new people. They expect you to get the job right away and get started right away. They require you to have very professional and vertical experience, so the entire employment space is divided into very small pieces."

For college graduates, internship experience has become an important bargaining chip for job hunting. Milan has been actively seeking internship opportunities in the financial and gaming industries since her freshman year, and has interned in five well-known companies. These experiences have made her more competitive when applying for jobs. She pointed out that compared with autumn and spring recruitment, summer internships are more critical to successful job hunting. She started submitting resumes in the second semester of her junior year, joined the company in June, and strived to be converted to a full-time employee after three months of internship, so that she can smoothly transition to formal work after graduation.

However, not every university graduate has an interview opportunity like Milan. Wu, who is about to graduate from a university in Chongqing, majored in architecture. However, due to the difficulty in finding a job, he was eventually "sent to a factory for internship" through school-enterprise cooperation. Not only did he have to work in two shifts, night and day, but his monthly salary was less than RMB 4,000. He also revealed that "the school would take kickbacks."

Faced with the grim employment situation, Wu said helplessly: "It's hard to find a job. I looked a lot, but the positions didn't have enough people and the education was not enough." Even if it doesn't match my major, I can only try to work in a factory. He also shared that half of the graduates last year still haven't found a job.

Employment rate declines, policies are difficult to alleviate the real difficulties

According to data released by Zhilian Recruitment in May 2024, the employment rate of Chinese college graduates will drop from 57.6% in 2023 to 55.5% in 2024, with slow employment (no specific plans for the time being) at 19.1% and freelance employment at 13.7%, a slight increase over the previous year.

In his government work report, Chinese Premier Li Qiang said that the government will expand employment and entrepreneurship channels for college graduates and strengthen the protection of the rights and interests of workers in flexible employment and emerging occupations. At the same time, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security plans to introduce a plan to tap the potential and expand the capacity of small and medium-sized enterprises, focusing on releasing more jobs in industries such as advanced manufacturing and major engineering projects, and expanding the scale of grassroots employment projects such as the "Three Support and One Assistance" and "Western Plan", and implementing employment internship programs and job search training camps.

Despite the frequent policy changes, the topic of "12.22 million college graduates" quickly became the second most searched topic on Weibo, with over 35 million views. Zhejiang blogger "Crocodile Thirteen" described the number of graduates as equivalent to the total population of Hangzhou, Suzhou and Zhengzhou, and said, "The already crowded job market has become even more difficult."

Beijing blogger "Xueba Section Chief" wrote an article saying "College students cannot sit and wait for policy support". They should first find a job and then choose a career. During college, they should participate in social practice and internships to accumulate work experience. Only when the school introduces enterprises to carry out school-enterprise cooperation can they respond to the enterprises' cost reduction and efficiency improvement and reduce the cost of human resource training.

However, there are also views that go straight to the core of the problem. Beijing blogger Geng Xiangshun said: "Only by vigorously developing the economy to increase economic growth, increase employment opportunities, give young people more career choices, vigorously develop vocational education... and improve the labor security and income of service and blue-collar workers can the problem be effectively solved."

Experts: Insufficient jobs, fundamental problems remain unsolved

China Youth Daily reported on March 11 that the "Three Supports and One Assistance" plan will recruit more than 30,000 college graduates in 2024 to go to the grassroots to provide services such as teaching, supporting agriculture, supporting medicine and rural revitalization. The Hong Kong South China Morning Post pointed out that the gig economy and vocational training have become the two major focuses of China's response to employment challenges this year.

But in reality, the policy has limited effect. Wu from Chongqing said he has not yet felt any help from employment assistance policies, and pessimistically said: "No matter what meetings are held or what policies are proposed, they have no effect. So many college students have become victims of the times."

Milan from Shenzhen believes that fresh graduates can be divided into two categories. One category is highly competitive, high-paying, high-profile companies. This group believes that the government's employment support policies do not meet their needs and are looking forward to more incentives such as increased corporate practice opportunities or overseas posting subsidies. The other category of graduates who prefer to find jobs in their hometowns, although they are more in line with government support policies, the high subsidy threshold makes it difficult for unemployed college students to apply. In addition, projects such as the "Three Supports and One Assistance" and the "Western Plan" are also difficult to attract highly educated talents due to difficult working conditions.

Milan also pointed out that the "flexible employment" model advocated by the government, such as the handicraft gig economy, can alleviate employment pressure in the short term, but it lacks social security, five insurances and one fund and other guarantees, making it difficult to become a long-term and stable career choice.

"Graduation leads to unemployment" has become a reality, and the job market still needs to truly recover

Faced with the growing number of graduates, employment policies are unlikely to alleviate the urgent need. Fang Congyan, assistant researcher at the Institute of Chinese Political, Military and Operational Concepts at the Taipei Institute for National Defense and Security Studies, analyzed that young Chinese people are facing a severe job market, and the fundamental problem is the lack of jobs.

Fang Congyan told VOA: "Graduation means unemployment, which is very appropriate for fresh graduates in today's Chinese society. From the government's perspective, they are eager to lower the unemployment rate, but these measures cannot solve the most fundamental problem of creating jobs, improving the economy, reviving the private economy, and attracting foreign companies to come back."

Fang Congyan said frankly that policies such as "flexible employment", "three supports and one assistance", gig economy, and western development plan have been implemented for many years, but have never been effective. It is unlikely that the old plan will be used again this year to bring better results. She also pointed out that the government is currently more inclined to let companies "squeeze out" job opportunities, which has led to workarounds such as increasing internships, working four days and resting three days, and reducing salaries to maintain the apparent stability of employment data, but these are not real full-time jobs.

She stressed that if the overall economy continues to be sluggish, private enterprises do not recover, and foreign capital withdraws, China's job market will be difficult to improve. Flexible employment is essentially a disguised form of odd jobs and is meaningless. And guiding higher education talents to work in rural areas or the west is not only inconsistent with young people's employment expectations, forming a structural mismatch, but also a huge waste of talent resources.