{"id":255008,"date":"2025-07-11T02:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T02:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/255008\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T02:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T02:07:10","slug":"do-i-expect-too-much-chinas-class-of-2025-faces-harsh-job-reality-after-graduation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/255008\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Do I expect too much?\u2019: China\u2019s class of 2025 faces harsh job reality after graduation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meanwhile China’s manufacturing sector<\/a> alone faces a shortage<\/a> of nearly 30 million workers this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More than 12 million new urban jobs have been added annually since the start of China\u2019s 14th Five-Year Plan, Zhou Haibing, Vice Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, told a press conference on Wednesday (Jul 9).<\/p>\n

Officials believe this year’s cohort would provide a much-needed injection of talent – but the reality on the ground is starkly different, experts said, with jobs remaining unfilled and many graduates unemployed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mismatch between available jobs and young people\u2019s skills or aspirations is becoming increasingly pronounced,\u201d said Zhao Litao, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore\u2019s East Asian Institute, noting that many openings were in sectors that did not appeal to most graduates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo even if jobs exist, they are not roles that many young people want or can afford to take after factoring in personal skills and social status,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Others noted how labour-intensive industries like construction, manufacturing and logistics offered steady work but were still struggling to attract young talent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr Li Fei, a doctoral supervisor at Zhejiang University\u2019s Institute for Science, Technology and Education Policy, said it was the result of a \u201cmindset shift\u201d among young Chinese graduates and jobseekers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMany prefer positions in emerging sectors or urban city jobs that feel more modern or socially valued, even if they come with greater competition,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most young Chinese graduates would also turn away from factory jobs, Zhao said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are looking for stability, decent pay and better work-life balance but (also face) a tough reality: slower economic growth, struggling businesses, rapid tech shifts and a job market that\u2019s expanding fastest in low-skill, high-turnover service sectors.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even in future-facing sectors – from AI to clean energy – the future still feels frustratingly out of reach for many fresh graduates.<\/p>\n

Cai Bao, a computer science graduate, thought his degree would be in demand but he soon found that much of what he had majored in did not match what companies were looking for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old studied at the North University of China, a provincial public school in Shanxi province – and has chronicled his arduous job hunt journey on Chinese social media – with videos of his experiences amassing over 21,000 views on apps like Douyin and Xiaohongshu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meanwhile China’s manufacturing sector alone faces a shortage of nearly 30 million workers this year.\u00a0 More than 12…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3092],"tags":[51,1395,33828,897,16,5664,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-255008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-graduation","11":"tag-jobs","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-unemployment","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114832162330956111","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}