Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality has begun to recruit college graduates to fill village jobs in its rural outskirts.

A total of 5,826 job vacancies in Chongqing were made available for college graduates throughout the country at the job fair in the Shanghai Everbright Convention & Exhibition Center on Saturday.

Among the vacancies, 4,736 jobs are as grass-roots officials in Chongqing's rural areas.

Successful applicants will act as assistant village head and assistant secretaries of village committees of the Chinese Communist Party in Chongqing's outlying villages.

Starting from this year, Chongqing plans to recruit 32,511 college graduates from all over the country to fill the jobs in its outlying villages during the next five years. The move is an effort to improve the quality of village officials as well as to relieve intense job pressure among college graduates, according to the job fair.

Chongqing is encouraging college graduates to take grass-roots jobs, because college graduates, with their knowledge and enthusiasm, will inject a new vitality into the building of the countryside.

About 300 enterprises, institutions and bureau departments set up their booths in the job fair. Facing a tough job market, a large number of college students from local universities applied for the openings.

Most of the graduates were enthusiastic about the vacancies as village officials, but few of them applied for the jobs at institutions of scientific and technological research, because those vacancies had high requirements such as several years of working experience.

Wang Shan applied for the job of grass-roots village official in Chongqing's Yubei District at Saturday's job fair. "I believe the move is worth a try, and according to the policy I can transfer to become a civil servant after working there for two years," she said.

(Shanghai Daily June 23, 2008)