Graduates and Unemployment(1)

SHENZHEN, DECEMBER 16-- Xiao Luo copies down information from employment ads cluttering the walls of the Shenzhen Employment Center into his bulging notebook. In his left hand he carries an old plastic bag with resumes, a bottle of water, and a thick coat. Like many, he is a college senior now looking for post-graduate work.
   
According to him, there are countless work opportunities in Shenzhen, but the great majority require at least three years worth of experience. Demand for graduating students is low. 
    
"Except for graduates from Peiking and Qinghua University, it's really difficult for this year's graduates to find work," he says.
    
Xiao Luo pays 10 yuan a night for a dorm-style bunk in an inn a few kilometers away from the Center. Almost everyone else staying there is also in the same predicament-- a college student looking for work. They come from as near and far as Henan, Jiangxi, Shandong, and Heilongjiang. Some have been there for months.
    
But the high cost of living in Shenzhen doesn't make it easy. At Xiao Luo's college he could eat breakfast for one yuan, but in Shenzhen even three yuan is not enough to buy a filling one. In order to save money he has already given up on it. His first meal is at noon, when he walks a kilometer to reach the cheapest dining hall he knows of. 
    
"Every time I'm upstairs at the Job Center looking at the car dealerships and skyscrapers, I feel like it's all just a dream, a dream that is gradually becoming more and more distant from me," he says.
    
The same story is being played out in Beijing.
    
It's December 17. Xiao Lin gets up at 6 a.m. to put on her best clothes and makeup. Hugging a pile of resumes she hurries to the Beijing International Exhibition Center.
    
She is a 24-year-old student at Hunan College earning a Masters of Arts. In order to find work ahead of graduation next June, as early as this past August she had been looking for work in Beijing. While still taking classes, this rural Anhui native imagined countless times what she would do after graduation: pay off her 20,000 yuan in college loans and work hard to support her parents.