Wen Jiabao visited Peking (Beijing) University to reassure students facing employment difficulties. From Reuters, via The Guardian:
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, in a surprise visit to a Beijing university, tried reassuring students they would be able to find jobs amid the current global economic woes, and promised more unspecified steps to help the economy.
Rising unemployment has fed Beijing’s fears of unrest as forecasts for China’s growth next year fall below 8 percent, seen as a minimum needed to create jobs and maintain social stability after years of double-digit expansion.
Students, who lead pro-democracy protests in 1989 which the government brutally put down, are a particular cause for concern.
“Students, please rest at ease, we are putting the problem of graduate employment first,” Wen was quoted as saying on Saturday to students at a Beijing university by the semi-official China News Service. “Your difficulties are my difficulties, and if you are worried then I am more worried than you,” Wen added.
Student anxieties over job prospects is a hot topic on the Internet. The blog chinaSMACK has posts on netizen responses to news of 1,300 graduate students competing to sell pork and 150,000 graduates at a Shenzhen career fair.
chinaSMACK’s summary of a Sina report:
The financial crisis makes it hard to find a job. People used to be shocked if “a good student at Beijing University sold pork.” However, more and more college graduates accept this reality now.
Recently, there was a pork retail chain store in Guangzhou looking to hire 30 employees to sell pork, and the annual salary would be 80,000 to 100,000 RMB. More than 1,300 graduate students showed up to apply. Those graduate students just graduated from different universities including Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, and South China University of Technology.
People who were in charge of the hiring said that this year was a good time to hire. 35 graduate students got their jobs as pork sellers.
chinaSMACK on a Netease post on the Shenzhen career fair:
Parked buses fill up a road near the Shenzhen Convention Center. Among them are many buses from other provinces [of China]. According to statistics, of the 150,000 graduates this time, over 70% are from universities outside of Guangdong province. Compared with last year’s job fair, this year’s attendance has reached new heights, but the number of employment positions available is still 20,000. Considering that many enterises are unable to recruit all the recent graduates they originally planned to, there are in reality less than 20,000 employment positions, causing the competition amongst graduate job-seekers to be even more intense.
Students at Shenzhen career fair (chinaSMACK)
