Facing the ever rising pressure of finding jobs for new college graduates, the Chinese government has recently requested college graduates to turn themselves from the "elite" to "ordinary workers" in their thoughts and take a lower profile in seeking jobs in the marketplace.

Relevant management organization official at China's Ministry of Education said, "In the era of universal higher education, China's college graduates cannot parade themselves as society's elites. They must assume the mentality of an ordinary worker to take part in the competitive job selection process."

More then twenty years ago when China practiced "planned economy," college students were praised as the elite in "ivory towers." The state used to assign jobs to college graduates and there was almost never a situation where college graduates would be unemployed.

This official appealed to college graduates, especially their parents, to change their "elitist" concept and consider taking jobs in smaller cities or with medium and small enterprises.

In 1999, China sharply increased the number of students admitted to colleges and the situation of college graduates looking for jobs has become grimmer by the day. Statistics show that this year China's labor supply is still in excess of demand and the gap is 14 million people, 1 million more than 2005.

To ameliorate the ever rising employment pressure for college students, China has decided to only increase the number of students admitted to colleges by 5 percent this year, a much smaller rate of growth than the double digit annual increases for years before and after 2000.

(China News Service May 24, 2006)