A record-breaking cohort of more than nine million students are expected to graduate next year from higher education institutions in mainland China, according to the latest official data, which flies in the face of Hong Kong’s ambition for more of its young people to live and work in the country’s Greater Bay Area.

When the city’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced plans in her policy address last week to fund a youth employment scheme to the tune of HK$430 million (US$55.5 million) so that more young Hongkongers could be encouraged to venture out to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, she probably had no idea of how difficult it would be for local graduates to get a job across the boundary.

Next year, the mainland Chinese job market was predicted to see an influx of 9.09 million fresh graduates of higher education institutions, an increase of 350,000 from this year and mainly coming from the universities, the Ministry of Education said on Tuesday in issuing a dire warning of the “severe and complicated” labor outlook.

The graduates would face unprecedented challenges and find it extremely tough to land work, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said during a video conference held in Beijing.

They requested local educational authorities and schools to prepare for the surge in fresh market entrants and explore more job opportunities for students, including by encouraging graduates to join strategically emerging industries or modern service sectors or to start their own businesses.

Authorities were also urged to get graduates to work at the grassroots level or apply to the military forces, to create more vacancies for scientific research assistants, and to recruit more students to pursue a second degree.

The higher education system in mainland China includes universities, colleges, higher vocational and technical institutes, and specialist schools. More than seven million students graduated in 2014 and over eight million in 2018.

Lam’s youth employment scheme, meant to achieve greater integration with the mainland, is to grant subsidies to companies to hire graduates of Hong Kong universities and post them to job positions in the Greater Bay Area.

Click here for Chinese version

---------------------------------

Apple Daily’s all-new English Edition is now available on the mobile app: bit.ly/2yMMfQE

To download the latest version,

iOS: bit.ly/AD_iOS

Android: bit.ly/AD_android

Or search Appledaily in App Store or Google Play