1. Introduction

Obviously, the whole world has moved into a new era of rapid growth. Yet, under the optimistic surface, several urgent problems exist whose solutions require that people work together. In a developing country like China, unemployment has become a crucial problem that challenges the young Chinese population. There are many scholars who mentioned this problem, but only a few of them consider the problem from each perspective. Quite concerned, this paper wants to focus on the situation from a wider perspective. According to the research, recent graduates in China are having a difficult time finding jobs [1]. Experts say that is likely to be a lasting challenge for the Chinese government. New data released on July 15, 2022, by China’s National Bureau of Statistics shows that youth unemployment reached 19.3% in June 2022 [2]. Now the figure reaches its peak with the start point at about 9.6% four years ago, as shown in the Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Nearly one fifth of young Chinese people are unemployed [2]

In the same way, since covid-19 starts at the end of 2019, according to Figure 1, it could be clearly seen the impact of pandemic and the rate of unemployment. Therefore, this paper will focus on analyzing the unemployment problem, focusing on the causes and effects, and adding some personal views (possible solutions) at the end. This article expects to make contribution to the study of unemployment rate, arouse the concern of global citizens on this issue, and serve as a reference for future issues. The whole content of this article is based on reliable sources. If there are any mistakes, please point them out and welcome to discuss together.

2. Reasons

2.1. Population Growth and Increasing in Women Graduates

To start with, although the growth rate of population is in a deceleration trend, the Chinese population is still climbed a lot. In 2021, Chinese population reached 1,412.6 million, while in 2010 there are only 1340.9 million [3]. According to article post by Capital University of Economics and Business, this will lead to more competitions within graduates, and they will also compete to more people than before. Since the jobs available in the country are kind of fixed (new jobs will created such as computer scientist, but old will be eliminate such as banker). In this situation, even new jobs are being created in recent era, the increase in jobs still cannot meet the need of graduates [4].

Besides, women graduate rocketed dramatically than the past as there is an idea of equality in the mind of majority of people so in today’s society, the problem of families don’t will to support girls entering school will never be common again. Currently, women have much more life chances and they will gain more opportunities whatever in applying for universities or seeking for jobs. Most of the traditional ideas just disappear, they have the same right as men have in whatever things they do [5]. These are part of the reason related to the increase in the number of graduates.

As the unemployment rate among young graduates keeps on increasing, this issue is concerned by the society because it may result in the slowing down of the growth of the economy, influencing citizens’ living standard as well as the outflow of talented people [6]. Therefore, readers must pay attention on the issue and cooperate to seek the solutions.

2.2. Economic Conditions with the Influences of Pandemic

Covid-19 start at December 2019, this pandemic brings huge impact in human society on different aspects including the employment condition in China. Especially in 2020, when the pandemic was first breaking out, huge number of small firms just closed down because costumers were all stay at home, without this financial income, there are not enough money to suppose these small companies to survive. Even fortunately, some country survived from pandemic, their economic has all been damaged and facing decreasing trends [7].

This problem can also create a huge impact on country scale, for instance no more tourists from other series or countries, how can those cities that are based on the tourism survived? The local restaurants and hotels just closed due to almost zero profits. Big and old businesses may be able to survive but they may also face the issue of staff cutting. In the situation, the opportunities for young graduates finding jobs just like looking for the needle in the ocean because no one have the ability to hire so many people.

Furthermore, the Covid-19 force students who were studying abroad came back to China because not only the pressure from parents but also the safety concerns. In this case, competition will be even heavier because of the return of overseas graduates.

2.3. Better Family Conditions and Education Background

Nowadays, the society really lack grassroots workers, especially for the young generation. Almost all the families’ economic conditions are much better so parents can send their children to good schools and achieve high educational attainments, these enable them to work in the big companies with high positions. For instance, in 2010 there are 5754 thousands of graduated students, but in 2020 this number reach to 7972 thousand [8]. This shows that more people in China have the opportunity to receive high quality of education.

In addition, the social mobility gives everyone a sense to get higher statues and achievements if they try their best. In this case, people can imagine that students just want to fight for the high-quality works and the reason is that they all dream to enjoy the better lives. So, graduates most are focusing on the mental work civil servant instead of labor work such as building workers. When the high-level positions are limited, a large percentage of the graduates will stay in unemployment.

2.4. Focusing Fields are Limited

Another challenge the graduates will face is that most of them only focus on several fields of the majors. For example, the most popular aspects are economics, finance, computer science, engineering and so on [9]. So, the competitions of the certain peer group will be incredibly huge. Once the graduates who don’t have enough abilities or are not being selected due to a number of reasons, they may find it so difficult to get a satisfied job. Moreover, they are kind of locked due to the specific major that they learnt at schools, it’s difficult for them changing into another aspect as they don’t have enough professional knowledge or skills, so compete with other students in another major will be even harder for them. Therefore, this might be an important factor why graduates cannot get the jobs.

2.5. Problems with China’s Universities

China's own educational system does not meet the needs of a more student and society. Chinese university admission focuses entirely on results, which means students can go to a good university if they can memorize all the information they learned. A head of school in Jiangsu mentioned that "Examinations in China can win a bright future for students, but only examinations can bring these things to students, and children can't win the big test of future life only with scores [10]."In order to achieve a success in life, knowledge and score is only a small part, what matters more is have independent awareness, be compassion, be justice, be a critical thinker and enjoy life. China's education system does not focus on cultivating these skills, so even students put much effort on their learning career, they still are need prepared for their future life.

In the same way, many Universities does not give student a correct guide on job hunting. For instance, there is a common sense for students in China: “if we go to the university, we are freedom and we do not need to work so hard [11].” This is absolutely wrong, in today’s situation if students cannot use the resources around them, then they may lose cherish opportunities of finding future job, since university teach professional levels of knowledge which are extremely useful for students. School needs to fix this negative awareness for students and show them it is urgent to seek knowledge by themself. Similarly, universities provide many forms and meetings for students but not noun of them are about career guide. These useless forms and meetings should be reduced in order to save students time to care about their future jobs.

2.6. Students’ Attitudes and Lack of Preparation

In addition, from the perspective of college students, they are not fully prepared for employment and lack of work competitive and team-working consciousness. Many college students do not pay attention to their studies after entering the University. For instance, they spend time on movies, gaming, shopping, and other amusement activities. But they are not aware of what they supposed to do, they supposed to focus much attention on their major work and use class free time to find possible job opportunity before they graduated.

2.7. Summary

In conclusion, through understanding the root of the unemployment problem for Chinese college graduates, the possible cause from multiple perspectives was analyzed: education system, social affect, change in era, student themselves. Right now, since this article’s another aim is to provide practical solutions.

3. Suggestions

3.1. Government

Government has the most powerful rights and strong credibility to solve this severe problem. To start with, government can provide more job opportunities for graduates. They can build more state-owned companies, which will create positions for young people. Meanwhile, the government should do more to encourage young people to screw in businesses and employment. Based on the list of inclusive policies for graduates, more events and competitions can be held to propagate the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, foster atmosphere, screw in ability, and broaden the space for entrepreneurship and employment.

In the same way, government need to emphasize the need of some low salary job. Mentioned by Professor Zheng who is working in ministry of education in China mentioned that there are so many job opportunities for instance aid poor children in the countryside. The problem is not the available job for students, but the student's dream of only get high salary job. Professor Zheng means that student should move their attention to jobs that really benefit the country not only care about the salary [12].

3.2. University

For University, they can start classes with more diversity or more skills-focused sessions that enable students to choose what they want to learn and some useful skills which may help them find jobs. For instance, all students have their target major when they enter university. The school should allow student to learn knowledge not only about their major but offer them chances to access wider range of major if they are interesting with.

Additionally, schools may build more connections with all kinds of companies, which can provide opportunities of internships to help them have a clear mind of their future goals. In the same way, school also need to provide the developing trend of each major in order to show student the current situation of their major and potential jobs for their majors. Through the connection between university and companies’ firms can find suitable graduates to work for them directly. Companies. can also provide student several internships to gain more potential work, but also give student chances to find jobs.

3.3. Secondary Education

As this article mentioned above, there are many problems occur in Chinese educational system, thus in order to fit the situation it is more directly that solutions can be found based on the problem. For instance, school can focus more attention on students' life schools, such as independent learning, critical thinking, creative skills... Normal public have so much work for student, what student gain from this process is only a lot of fact, but not the method of solving problem. According to H. Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve, it indicates that people will forget over 80% of they learned after a week [13]. This shows that even student work so hard to memorize everything and successfully pass the test, they will not benefit from this knowledge in their future life. School can involve more presentation, hand work activity, poster making project to develop student's learning ability, and focus on teaching how to learn a piece of knowledge.

3.4. Social Platform

People can also work together to provide more job opportunity for workers. Society should care this problem because students are the people who will support the country in future. When the current population is old, they need to support by these young generation. However, if young generation cannot participate in working for the country, there will be a decline in people's life quality, and it is hard to progress for the society.

People can support students by establish some online platforms or open offices that introduce job for graduates. During these ways, student can build more connection with companies and have higher chance to find suitable jobs.

3.5. Students’ Own Effort

No matter all the factors around students, the most directly way is to rely on student themself. Actively receive help from the society and ask questions to anyone that can help them. For instance, when they are not graduated, they can seek help from their seniors, these students have much more experience than them. In the same way, they can ask professor and their family for help, these people are professions on these fields, which may be really helpful.

4. Conclusions

During the investigation above, there are several points that need to be emphasized and restated. Unemployment problem is an issue that needs to bring attention by the global citizen. In this article, China is a practical example of unemployment problem. This is a signal for the world to care about this problem. The main factors that may affect the unemployment rate are population growth, pandemic, development of society, students’ bias, educational system... This can show that the affecting factors are diversity and comes from multi-perspectives. The solutions provided by the author group are also based on these factors. For instance, improve government's altitude, change in educational system, improve on social platform and growth of students' awareness. After reading this article, readers are expected to use the information to improve their current situation and spread the urgency of the problem.

With the progress of the times, similar problems will occur frequently. Although people can certainly overcome these obstacles in the future, making efforts are still necessary. In this era, everyone can make some contributions to a better world in the future and be a witness of the history.