Students Grow Desperate Over China's Tight Job Market

Tensions over employment after graduation have exploded repeatedly in recent months, betraying the pressure students say they feel. Students at Shengda Economics, Trade and Management College, affiliated with Zhengzhou University, rioted in June when they discovered that their diplomas would not be the same as those from the university itself, putting them at a disadvantage in job hunting. A similar riot erupted last month at the Ganjiang Vocational and Technical Institute in Jiangxi province south of here. The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy has recorded 10 such disturbances since summer.

Zhang, who studied liberal arts with a major in English, said students from provincial universities such as Zhengzhou's have the most difficulty finding appropriate jobs. Those from the "top 10," he said, usually find employment immediately. The employment center director at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University said, for example, that every 2007 Tsinghua graduate should be able to choose from five job offers.

But Yu and Hou, aware they might end up like the Beijing waitress, said they rose at 6 a.m. Sunday to get ready for the job fair. They had already bought entrance tickets for the equivalent of 60 cents. Then, with six classmates, they set out, changing buses to get from their suburban campus to the downtown center, arriving about 8 a.m.

They struggled through the crowd and approached the entrance. By then, Yu said, the mayhem was underway. "I was pushed onto the escalator," she recalled, "and I heard people screaming, 'The escalator is broken!' "

A security guard, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said the doors were supposed to open at 8:30, but he and his colleagues opened them an hour early because of the crush. By then, he said, a large plaza in front of the center was full of students, and hundreds more overflowed into the street, unable to make their way through the gate.

"Society assumes that college students should find a job and that they can find one," said Peng Tao, 23, an English major from a small town in neighboring Hubei province, "so we are under great pressure and have to grab every single chance that comes by."

But Peng said that when he arrived about 10 a.m., as the pushing and shoving was at its apex, he was so shocked by what he saw that he turned around and went back to his dormitory.

Researcher Jin Ling contributed to this report.