Univ. graduates 'hired' at jobseeking agencies
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-25 08:44

Some universities in Guangdong are farming out unemployed graduates to employment agencies to improve their graduate employment figures, according to the South China Morning Post.

More than 20,000 university graduates in Xi'an, capital city of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, wait on November 5 2004 to verify their registration for 2005 national examination for civil servants. There are 1,553 posts available from Shaanxi provincial government and 8,400 from central government departments. [China Daily]

Students listed with employment agencies can be counted by universities as being employed.

"My counselor advised me to move my file to the Nanfang Talent Market so that I could stay in Guangzhou," said Effie Zheng, a Chaozhou native who has graduated from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (GUFS).

Zheng said he, several classmates, and some friends from Guangdong University of Law and Business, paid the agency 1,500 yuan (US$184) to keep their files for three years and were allowed to retain their Guangzhou hukou, or residency.

What they did not know was that the education department had asked universities to keep unemployed graduates on file for free for two years to ease social pressure when graduate unemployment became a problem in 2003.

"It wasn't clear that I could keep my file at the university. Our school promoted the talent market but afterwards I realized that they did it so that they did not have to include us in unemployment figures," Zheng said.

A GUFS counselor referred queries about the practice to higher authorities at the university, saying 83 percent of the 2,224 students who graduated this year had found jobs by July 1.

A counselor at Guangdong University of Law and Business reported an employment rate of 96.06 percent for last year's graduates. He said he was aware some graduates were maintaining their files at employment agencies.

"They do it for hukou. I am aware of the practice but I've not received any complaints from students," he said.

The education department requires universities to guarantee students an employment rate of 70 percent.

In Guangdong last year, 97.3 percent of graduates found jobs. But teachers complain that instead of focusing on teaching they have to think about finding jobs for their students while the students spend their entire last semester job hunting.

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