Graduates Finding it Harder to Become Beijing Residents

Economic Observer Online
Translated by Zhang Chao
Original Aritcle: [Chinese]

In late November, at the tenth plenary session of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee aimed at examining and verifying the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, Liu Qi proposed two directions for government action: the first aim is population control; the second is to traffic congestion.

New population control measures will hit college students, making it harder for them to register in Beijing as local residents.

According to our newspaper's findings, policies regulating how university graduates from other areas of China to become registered as Beijing residents will be tightened. 

College graduates in Beijing who have come from other areas need to meet two requirements to become registered in Beijing as a local resident. First they must meet qualifications set out by their colleges, and second, their employer must agree to enroll them as local residents.

"Colleges and universities give 30 percent of their graduates the opportunity to be registered as local Beijing residents, but whether they can obtain a registration depends on their employer," said a career guidance counselor from a key university in Beijing.

The counselor also told us that the trend of restricting the number of Beijing registrations began last year.

However the approval of both their university and employers is not enough; students also have to pass an examination conducted by the Beijing Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security, which is becoming tougher and tougher.

Students who have failed some of their subjects, repeated some courses, or failed to reach a level four on the national English examination, cannot get approval.

This article was edited by Rose Scobie and Ruoji Tang