Graduates and Unemployment(3)

At one station in the Exhibition Center, a staff member organized a huge pile of job applications. Ninety percent of them have "1,000 to 2,000 yuan" written as the expected entrance salary.
    
In 1999 China's universities started to increase admissions as part of a national policy. After the first wave of students have been in society for three years, they've developed more rational perspectives towards employment. The big city, good industry, high salary expectations have weakened.
    
Ren Zhanzhong, director of the Center says tells the Economic Observer that the average salary of 2006 graduates was 2,262.31 yuan. But discrepancies in salaries between different industries was very large, and many salaries were lower than 800 yuan.
    
According Ren Zhanzhong, businesses think this is normal compensation because they have no way of knowing how adaptable and capable these new hires will be. They must be trained and tested before they can be used to their full potential.
    
Chen Jun, deputy director of the National Employment Mobility Center, uses both "first-time unemployed" and "second-time unemployed" figures to assess this phenomenon. "It's like the housing market," she says. "The first property that is bought just has to satisfy basic needs; the second purchase aims to improve one's lifestyle. Generall speaking, the first job one takes does not bear much in terms of salary or experience. 
    
According to figures by the National Development and Reform Commission, there will be almost five million college students graduating in 2007, an increase of 820,000 over 2006. 200,000 will be coming from Beijing, a 20,000 increase over 2006.
    
Ren Zhanzhong says that this kind of situation will be the norm for the next few years, with no improvement in employment opportunities. "Supply and demand are where they are, there's nothing that can be done about it." 
    
But the government has been working hard to help graduating students get jobs.
    
Chen tells this reporter that officials have decided to focus on employment for recent graduates during 2007, with a series of measures already being considered in order to improve the employment environment for them. At the beginning of this month, Lenovo, Qingdao Beer, Renhe Group, and 76 others became the first batch of firms approved for employing recent graduates under a new internship framework. 
    
Chen points out that efforts to establish 1,000 centers offering internships to college graduates are also an important step.