Labor market is imbalanced
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Besides, China is still downstream in the global industrial chain, which deprives it of creating many jobs. "Many job opportunities such as designing, research and development, and marketing appeal to and need people with higher qualifications but they are not properly or adequately distributed in China, for many products made here are designed abroad."
Take iPhone for instance. While foreign designers and researchers work out how to add value to the product and attract more consumers, Chinese workers only assemble and package them. That's why college graduates may have fewer opportunities in China than abroad. Having compared Chinese and foreign college graduates, Zhang found that less than 3 percent of the country's graduates are likely to start their own business compared with 20 percent in developed countries. That dries up many job opportunities, because if one person starts a business, he/she could provide employment to several others.
It is inevitable that more college graduates will become blue-collar workers in the future, which will enhance the average educational level of workers. "The entry threshold in many professions is rising. Many manufacturing enterprises already want applicants to have a college diploma." This phenomenon is not uncommon in developed countries.
Developed countries don't have the concept of migrant workers. Instead, college graduates are divided into two categories: fully employed or partly employed. Partly employed graduates often have unstable jobs without good pay or perks, something that is common to Chinese migrant workers.
About 80 percent of American college graduates who responded to a survey said the most important thing for them was to work, even it was part-time. In Japan, one out of every six graduate is unemployed, and many part-time workers have to do full-time jobs.
The situation in China is no different. "The imbalance between demand and supply in the labor market is serious, though the accelerated upgrade of the manufacturing industry and development of the third industry will boost the need for personnel with higher qualifications and skills."
Zhang, however, says that even if college graduates find a job in relatively high-end services like designing and marketing, they should not expect higher starting salaries than migrant workers, because their contribution to the economy is not much different in the beginning. College graduates' average starting pay is less than 1,500 yuan ($227) a month and migrant workers' is about 1,200 yuan, though the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics show the average salary of migrant workers is slightly higher than that of fresh graduates and according to the ACFTU survey, the average young migrant worker earns about 1,747 yuan a month.
Will that prevent many people from pursuing higher education, which is also a form of investment? Zhang does not think so. "Fresh college graduates might share the same starting salary and even do the same job that migrant workers do, but their career will vary greatly in the future."
In the coming years, jobs will require continuous learning of more skills, he says. And the greatest advantage higher education offers is the art of learning and mastering new technologies. "After all, the future belongs to those with knowledge."
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