Students look for job during a spring campus job fair in Xining, capital of northwest China's Qinghai Province, March 24, 2021. (Xinhua/Zhang Long)

 

BEIJING, Aug. 19, 2021 -- With a record high of 9.09 million college graduates seeking to be hired this summer amid a lingering fight with COVID-19, the Chinese government has put employment high on its policy agenda, ramping up efforts to keep the job market vibrant.

 

Such a huge legion, about 350,000 more than the previous year, resulted in fiercer competition in the job market, sending the unemployment rate for young people aged between 16 and 24 to 16.2 percent in July, the year's monthly high, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data showed.

 

NBS spokesperson Fu Linghui said the unemployment rate normally rose faster in June and July due to the massive influx of fresh college graduates into labor markets.

 

But the July unemployment rate grew less than the pre-pandemic level, indicating overall stability in the country's employment situations, Fu said.

 

In July, the country's surveyed unemployment rate in urban areas was 5.1 percent, up 0.1 percentage points from June, but lower than the rates registered in the same period in 2020 and 2019.

 

From January to July, the country created a total of 8.22 million new urban jobs, achieving 74.7 percent of its annual target.

 

As fresh college graduates, a key group in need of employment, take up 83 percent of the year's job creation target, Chinese authorities have been emphasizing the necessity to stay on top of the latest market development and meet their job-seeking needs through effective measures.

 

 

In an executive meeting held Monday, the State Council, China's cabinet, decided that job security will remain a high priority.

 

The country will facilitate market-oriented job creation by the non-public sector, and enhance employment assistance and services for college students and other key populations.

 

The government also required that favorable policies such as tax and fee cuts, as well as inclusive finance, should be properly implemented, according to a teleconference chaired by Premier Li Keqiang on college students' employment held in Beijing in early June.

 

All regions and departments should strengthen the employment-first policy and boost employment for key job-hunting groups including college graduates, the meeting said.

 

China's human resource authorities will encourage small and medium-sized enterprises to hire graduates by launching a subsidy scheme in the next step.

 

Volunteering to teach in rural village schools, and working for rural vitalization will also be encouraged, according to a plan launched by the education ministry and other three departments. Under the plan, about 32,000 college graduates will be selected and posted to rural areas in the next five years.

 

Local governments across the country also spared no efforts to facilitate college graduates to land a job, by expanding recruitment channels, and encouraging online recruitment platforms to participate, a researcher at the job hunting platform under 58.com observed.

 

Southwest China's Chongqing metropolis, for instance, saw 243,000 graduates leave the campus in 2021, 8,000 more than last year. But the overall employment situation this year is better than that of 2020, Zhang Pan, a human resource official from the city said.

 

In general, the economy is steadily recovering, and the implementation of key strategies such as the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle and rural vitalization will facilitate the job-seeking process for college students, Zhang noted.

 

 

To ease employment pressure, sustaining business vitality and hiring demand has proven to be important.

 

When presiding the Monday executive meeting, Li Keqiang said last year's experience showed that sustaining fairly sufficient employment helped generate wealth, keep the market vibrant and maintain social stability.

 

"We must continue to put employment high on our agenda and see that all assistance and support policies are fully delivered," he said.

 

The government has promised to fully deliver the tax and fee cuts already introduced and curb arbitrary charges so as to support market entities to secure employment.

 

As fresh college students are sprinting to land jobs these days, Zhang Chenggang, a professor at the Capital University of Economics and Business, saw improving signs in the job market, citing a recent survey which showed that more than 41 percent of enterprises planned to recruit more fresh graduates this year than last year by the end of June.

 

The total number of job openings and the salaries are both higher than that in 2019, suggesting an upturn in college students' labor market, said Zhang.