How Wuhan left 250,000 university graduates
"China News Weekly" reporter/Xu Dawei
Published on 2020.6.29 total issue 953 "China News Weekly"
After a late but short "school season", Wuhan, which was once the epicenter of epidemic storms, is about to usher in an unprecedented surge in graduation.
Starting from June 8th, Hubei colleges and universities have arranged to return to school voluntarily after staggering the graduation grade. Wuhan currently has 83 colleges and universities of various types, making it the city with the largest number of college students in China. There will be 317,000 fresh graduates in Wuhan this year, an increase of 9.3% from last year, and the number of graduates has reached a record high.
Wuhan began to implement the "One Million College Students' Employment and Entrepreneurship Project in China" in 2017, ensuring that 1 million college students will be retained for five years. This year is the fourth year of the project. Although the economy was hit hard by the epidemic, Wuhan still set up a "military warrant" to ensure that no less than 250,000 graduates of employment and entrepreneurship stay in China this year.
For this year's Wuhan, solving the employment of fresh graduates is a tough battle. The supply of jobs has been reduced, students’ willingness to find jobs has been sluggish, and some professions have encountered employment “Waterloo”; the greater challenge comes from the plight of Wuhan small and medium-sized enterprises that are unable to return to work after resuming work. Allowing SMEs to survive and overcome difficulties has become the key to breaking the situation.
Aftermath of the storm center
In February, the most severe epidemic in Wuhan, Liao Sha, deputy dean of the Transportation Management and Service College of Wuhan Transportation Vocational and Technical College, who was in charge of employment, began to hang a heart for the employment of students in the two majors of tourism and hotel management.
As the epicenter of the epidemic storm, Wuhan, tourism, catering, hotels, aviation and other industries have entered the cold winter, and the city's shutdown has caused shocks to related industries. On April 8, Wuhan was unsealed. Liao Sha began to communicate frequently with the college's school-enterprise cooperation units to understand the status of the company's resumption of production and production, so as to find out the talent needs of the company this year. More than a month of communication has made Liao Sha realize that many industries are still in the stage of "spiritual injury".
A budget hotel chain in Wuhan is one of the school-enterprise cooperation units. During the communication with the hotel personnel manager, Liao Sha learned that the hotel's passenger flow has not been restored, and staff reductions have been severe. For example, a chain store that originally required a 30-person operation team has now been compressed to seven or eight people, and this year's new employee recruitment plan is at a standstill.
In Wuhan, the tourism industry is also bleak. Magnolia Township Scenic Area is located in Huangbei District of Wuhan City. Since the park opened on April 10, the daily visitor volume has been around 2,000, less than one-tenth of the same period in previous years. Jiang Shan, director of the scenic area office, told China News Weekly that after predicting that the market will be difficult to recover in the first half of this year, the goal of the scenic area is to seek stability and livelihood. At present, there are 160 employees in the scenic spot, and the monthly labor cost is about 700,000 yuan.
The huge survival pressure of the scenic spot has affected the recruitment end. This year, the recruitment of fresh graduates of tourism majors that is in line with the demand for labor in the scenic spot has basically come to a halt. Wuhan Xuezhiyanxuexue is a cultural and cross-border company. In addition to the travel agency business, there is also a scenic spot under construction. The person in charge of the company told China News Weekly that the current performance of the company is not recovering well and needs to wait for the industry to pick up before considering the corresponding recruitment plan.
This year, Wuhan Communications Vocational and Technical College held 5 large-scale job fairs. Liao Sha was responsible for contacting the enterprise resources of the hospitality and tourism majors. As a result, the invitations sent out did not receive much response. What worries Liao Sha even more is that if the epidemic occurs repeatedly, the employment problem of graduates in 2020 will not be resolved, and the employment pressure of graduates in 2021 will follow, forming a "two-peak superposition."
Starting from May 19th, the Tourism Education Branch of the China Tourism Association held a 10-day online recruitment fair for graduates of national tourism colleges and universities. Liao Sha, who attended the meeting, found that everyone was generally worried about the "two-peak superposition" brought about by the ongoing epidemic.
Decreased job supply and reduced demand, this is a common problem faced by universities in Wuhan this year. According to the data released by Zhilian Recruitment, in the spring of 2020, the number of job postings in Wuhan decreased by 73.9% year-on-year, and the number of resumes posted decreased by 82.5% year-on-year. A number of employment instructors from Wuhan universities pointed out to China News Weekly that the epidemic had a huge impact on the employment of some majors.
Huazhong University of Science and Technology is famous for engineering, and Dang Ruihong, director of the school’s Employment Guidance Center, told China News Weekly that the overall employment of engineering majors is better, while the employment of related majors in liberal arts colleges and departments is greatly affected by the epidemic. Wen Xi, director of the Employment Guidance Center of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, told China News Weekly that the employment of the school’s finance and other majors has been greatly affected by the epidemic. “The school’s professional setting belongs to the “soft science”, unlike the “hard science” index like science and engineering. Sexuality, the entire employment is affected."
A report recruited by Zhilian shows that science and engineering students have better expectations of the employment situation this year than those of humanities and social sciences. The proportion of graduates of social sciences, humanities, law and economics majors believes that the employment situation this year is "very difficult". Average.
In addition, the impact of the epidemic has made the “stratification” of graduate employment more obvious. According to a survey by the Wuhan Talent Service Center, the employment channels of double-first-class universities are relatively smooth, and the employment rate is roughly the same as in the same period of previous years. However, it is more difficult for ordinary undergraduate colleges and vocational colleges, especially liberal arts majors to find employment.
On June 20, the teachers and students of Wuhan University participated in the graduation ceremony in silence for the sacrifice of martyrs and dead compatriots for the new crown pneumonia. On the same day, Wuhan University held a special graduation ceremony. Representatives of 660 graduates set the crown at the scene. Graduates who failed to attend the ceremony witnessed their graduation ceremony by watching the 5G live broadcast of "Cloud" Juluojia. Figure/Zhongxin
The "No. 1 Project" of universities
For colleges and universities in Wuhan, what is more tricky is how to boost the generally depressed employment desire of graduates.
Dai Zhongxun is a fresh graduate of the School of Journalism and Communication of Wuhan University. His original plan to go abroad to study was stranded due to the outbreak of foreign epidemics. Dai Zhongxun chose to be employed first. After submitting 50 resumes, two companies sent interview invitations to Dai Zhongxun. Dai Zhongxun told China News Weekly that she only intends to work for one year, so the expectation for this job is not high.
There are 23 graduates in journalism at the School of Journalism and Communication of Wuhan University. According to Dai Zhongxun, most of the students in the class are planning to go on to study or go abroad. Only those who are interested in employment are single digits. The college has 176 undergraduates this year. Li Zhuangzhuang, a college counselor, told China News Weekly that half of his classmates are still looking for work. Li Zhuangzhuang found that the number of classmates who intend to take the civil service examination this year has increased, because the recruitment policy for civil servants in Hubei Province and Wuhan City has not been released this year, and many students choose to continue to wait.
Wen Xi, the director of the Employment Guidance Center of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, found that employment is difficult this year. One of the difficulties is that students’ job-seeking mentality is not adjusted properly. Living at home for a long period of time during the epidemic made students feel pressureless about job hunting. In addition, this year's postgraduate re-examination time was postponed due to the epidemic situation, which shortened the time interval from the next postgraduate enrollment. Some students chose not to look for a job and continue their postgraduate entrance examination.
Dang Ruihong, director of the Employment Guidance Center of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, holds a similar view. Through investigation, Dang Ruihong found that more undergraduates tend to take the postgraduate entrance examination this year, and many parents also have an encouraging and supportive attitude. However, many employment instructors suggested that graduates should first find employment before choosing a career, and should not spend this difficult period with a wait-and-see attitude.
The students' mentality is loose, but the school is in a hurry. For colleges and universities, the employment rate of graduates is a "hard bar" and the problem must be overcome.
Yang Daoyuan, vice president of Wuhan Vocational College of Transportation, told China News Weekly that the school classifies graduates into three levels and strategizes. Focus on helping 4 special groups of students, namely students from poor families, students with disabilities, students from ethnic minorities and students from zero-employment families. At the same time, a contract system is adopted for the employment of students. Each professional intern instructor and counselor are assigned to be responsible for the employment of several students.
Facing the "most difficult employment season", the college has also begun to change the direction of employment guidance to encourage students to cross-professional employment, and the teachers of the college are also actively contacting enterprise resources in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. However, new problems followed. Wuhan's local enterprises were in low demand, and students responded coldly to jobs in foreign provinces and cities. Liao Sha told "China News Weekly" that Wuhan Vocational College of Transportation is mainly based on Hubei students, and the proportion of graduates who stay in China for employment every year is about 70%. Students are reluctant to go to work abroad, which makes it more difficult to solve the employment problem.
This year, all colleges and universities in Wuhan listed student employment as the "No. 1 Project." Zhongnan University of Economics and Law has established employment leadership groups at the school level and at all second-level colleges. This is a coordinating body with multiple departments involved. Wen Xi said, "Because of the epidemic, all departments are trying to make this mechanism more efficient."
In response to the reduction in the supply of enterprise jobs, universities in Wuhan have mobilized teachers to expand employment resources, hoping to make up for the job gap by developing more enterprise channels. Taking Wuhan Vocational College of Communications as an example, there are currently 81 newly-developed and employed enterprises, providing 1,177 jobs.
Xiong Jun, secretary of the party committee and director of the Wuhan Talent Service Center, told China News Weekly that currently 700,000 jobs are provided for Wuhan graduates nationwide, of which 200,000 are provided by Wuhan enterprises. Xiong Jun believes that from the perspective of job supply, it can meet the employment needs of fresh graduates in Wuhan, but it must pay attention to the structural imbalance of job supply, that is, the problem of mismatch between jobs and graduates.
250,000 is a guaranteed number
In 2017, Wuhan initiated the implementation of the "One Million University Students to Work in China's Entrepreneurship and Employment Plan" to ensure that 1 million college students will be retained for five years, and will take this work as the "leading project" of the party and government. Under the impact of the epidemic, whether this year's Wuhan "One Million College Students Staying in China" project can continue will attract much attention.
In mid-April, Wuhan City held a special work conference on talent recruitment, which proposed to ensure that there will be more than 250,000 university students studying in China this year. Sun Zhijun, deputy director of the Wuhan Municipal Party Committee Organization Department and executive deputy director of the Recruitment Bureau, told China News Weekly that 250,000 is a guaranteed figure.
This number means that Wuhan will add 250,000 jobs this year. This is both a goal and a core indicator for the assessment of relevant departments. In order to accomplish this goal, Wuhan has set up a leadership group for employment work. According to the responsibilities of the department, it decomposes the target tasks and strikes a set of policy combinations.
On April 16, the Wuhan Municipal Government issued the "Notice on Doing a Good Job in the Work of Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurship for College Graduates to Respond to the Impact of the New Coronary Pneumonia Epidemic", at the policy level to "overweight", from encouraging enterprises to absorb employment and expand recruitment scale, to A series of specific measures have been put forward to guide graduates to employment at the grass-roots level.
Sun Zhijun revealed to "China News Weekly" that the recruitment scale of civil servants, electives and public institutions in Wuhan will be expanded this year. The number of civil servants is expected to reach about 1,100, the highest in the past three years. In the same period last year, because of institutional reforms, the number of civil servants recruited was only more than 200.
Wuhan decision-makers plan to bring together as many job resources as possible in the next one or two years in the administrative system to solve the employment difficulties facing this year. For example, Wuhan implemented a special recruitment plan for community workers. In this and next two years, according to the size of the existing community, each community will add 1 to 2 college graduates. This year, the number of community workers will be more than 1,500.
In addition, Wuhan will expand the recruitment scale in intelligence-intensive industries such as health care and education. In Sun Zhijun's view, this type of employment is easier to solve in the administrative system. The key is to sort out the data and standards.
Wuhan City has also set recruitment indicators for municipal state-owned enterprises, requiring municipal state-owned enterprises to take no less than 60% of the newly created positions for the recruitment of new college graduates. The internship period of the unit is used as a prerequisite for the recruitment of college graduates. It is estimated that Wuhan's state-owned enterprises can provide 1500~2000 jobs this year.
Wuhan City Organization, People's Social Organization and other departments also held "meeting meetings" with Han central enterprises and provincial state-owned enterprises to mobilize enterprises to take more positions to attract college students for employment. Sun Zhijun told China News Weekly that central enterprises in Han are expected to provide 2,000 to 3,000 jobs this year.
This year, Wuhan's talent policy has been further upgraded. For example, Wuhan this year will give a one-time job subsidy of 1,400 yuan per person to all 2020 graduates of Henkel University. The policy upgrade means that the government's investment in "real money" has also risen. "China News Weekly" learned from the Wuhan City Recruitment Bureau that the subsidy for fresh graduates can only reach 1.5 billion yuan. Sun Zhijun said that Wuhan’s policies on the employment of college students issued since 2017 will continue to be implemented this year.
In Sun Zhijun's view, solving the employment problem of college students is a systematic project that requires concerted efforts from multiple parties. Wuhan hopes to use the platform, universities and social forces to "leverage" to gather employment resources. In addition, Wuhan also hopes to contact the Chu Business Association, Wuhan University Alumni Entrepreneurs Association and other industry associations to mobilize entrepreneur resources to provide more jobs for college graduates in Han.
According to the data provided by the Wuhan City Recruitment Bureau, Wuhan has currently conducted more than 100 online recruitment activities, and a total of 1,780 companies have posted more than 100,000 jobs, including 66,501 with a monthly salary of more than 5,000 yuan. At present, 81,563 resumes have been received, and 15,149 people have signed up for university business.
Sun Zhijun believes that Wuhan will leave 250,000 college students this year. Although the task is arduous, it is still confident that it will be completed.
A large part of confidence comes from Wuhan's pillar industries. Automobile, photoelectric information, biomedicine and medical equipment are the three pillar industries of Wuhan. Wuhan Economic Development Zone and Optics Valley are the gathering places of related pillar industries. Earlier, a survey on the factors affecting the work of Wuhan college graduates studying in China showed that the majors of Chinese graduates were mainly distributed in engineering, which means that the three pillar industries play a role of “ballast stone” for the employment of college students. .
Sun Zhijun told "China News Weekly" that Wuhan, as China's auto city, manufactures automobiles and parts and components in the industrial system, and is the main force for absorbing college students' employment.
In the Wuhan Development Zone, OEMs led by Dongfeng Honda resumed full production, which synchronously drove more than 500 parts suppliers to resume production. Chen Xuesong, deputy director of Dongfeng's human resources department, previously revealed that Dongfeng's campus recruitment this spring will focus on colleges and universities in Hubei region, providing nearly 400 fresh graduate positions.
Wuhan East Lake High-tech Zone is known as China's "Optical Valley". As China's largest optoelectronic information industry base, the park has gathered many "leading enterprises" in the optoelectronic information industry. TCL Huaxing Optoelectronics invested 16 billion to establish the first domestic 6th generation LTPS display panel production line in Wuhan. Chen Jiena, the company's HR, told China News Weekly that the acquisition of Huaxing Optoelectronics and the construction of a new factory have released the demand for employment. This year's recruitment demand for freshmen is basically the same as in previous years, about 1,000 people.
According to the data provided by the Recruitment Bureau of the Management Committee of the East Lake High-tech Zone, with the continuous release of the company's production capacity and labor demand, especially the "second headquarters" enterprises such as Ape Counseling, Suntech Institution, and Spark Thinking further expand the scale of personnel in Han. Will continue to meet the needs of enterprise employment, continue to raise and publish no less than 20,000 jobs.
Small and medium-sized micro-reservoir "shallowed"
Small and medium-sized enterprises are the largest container for employment, which is a consensus in Wuhan. According to a data, as of the end of last year, Wuhan had 739,000 small and micro business owners, these companies accounted for about 60% of the total number of Wuhan enterprises, providing more than 70% of the city's jobs. Xiong Jun, secretary of the party committee and director of the Wuhan Talent Service Center, told China News Weekly that the demand for labor in small, medium and micro enterprises has dropped by 30 percentage points this year. "This has resulted in a shallow reservoir for student employment."
Wuhan Weicheng Technology is a small and micro enterprise engaged in software development, mainly providing software services for institutions and institutions. Affected by the epidemic, many government agencies lived in "tight days", and their budgets were reduced, causing many of the company's projects to be cut off. Zhao Xiaochang, chairman and general manager of the company, told China News Weekly that the company's business is initially recovering, but it is basically in the early stage of intention and has not yet landed. WeChat Technology has a recruitment plan for about 10 people this year, but because colleges and universities have not started this year, they can only recruit online, which leaves the company little choice for candidates.
Suzuki Games also has a recruitment demand for 10 positions this year, but this year's recruitment is more difficult than in previous years. Suzuki Game CEO Luo Xiangyu analyzed the "China News Weekly", because the impact of the epidemic makes it difficult for the company to attract foreign talents. In the past years, training institutions have been one of the recruitment channels. However, the closure of training institutions has closed the relevant talent sources.
Xiong Jun believes that state-owned enterprises are one of the very stable channels to solve the employment of college students, but they cannot solve the fundamental problems. In his view, small and medium-sized enterprises, especially start-ups such as video, video games, and service industries, have a strong ability to absorb employment. This year, many small, medium and micro enterprises in Wuhan have difficulty operating, which has an impact on the employment of college students.
Although small and medium-sized enterprises in Wuhan have resumed production and production, many enterprises are still facing difficulties such as slow market recovery, weak performance recovery, and tight cash flow. Some small and micro enterprises are struggling to survive. In order to help small and medium-sized enterprises, Wuhan established a special fund for bailout of small and medium-sized enterprises with a loan amount of 20 billion yuan to provide eligible one-year small and medium-sized enterprises with a one-year interest-free loan. 40 billion yuan.
In order to encourage and support the employment of small and micro enterprises, Wuhan will provide a one-time employment subsidy and a corresponding social insurance subsidy to the small and micro enterprises that absorb employment of workers according to the standard of 1,000 yuan per person. At the same time, the application conditions for small and micro-enterprise start-up guaranteed loans are reduced. If the small and micro-enterprise start-up guaranteed loans that have been issued are difficult to repay due to the epidemic situation, they can apply for a temporary deferred repayment and exempt from penalty interest.
In terms of social security payment, Wuhan reduced the corporate social security premium rate to 16%, and is expected to reduce the cost of three social security payment for enterprises by 9.4 billion yuan. During the epidemic situation, employers can postpone the payment of social insurance premiums. From February to June this year, the total extension and suspension is expected to reach 12.651 billion yuan.
Luo Zhi, director of the China New Private Economic Research Center of Wuhan University, conducted a questionnaire survey on the preferential government policies of small and medium-sized enterprises in Wuhan in late April this year. The survey results show that the main reason for the difficulty of implementing preferential policies is that the policy documents are too long and too long to be digested by small, medium, and micro enterprises; some of the preferential policies are not clear, and companies cannot be seated; some policies have small discounts and high transaction costs. ; Some preferential policies are designed with good intentions, but in the actual process due to operational problems, it is difficult to play a role.
Luo Zhi wrote that the government should, as far as possible, classify preferential policies in the policy formulation process, so that companies can be seated at the same number; at the same time when the preferential policies are announced, it is best to publish the implementation rules at the same time, and the implementation process needs to be optimized; the formulation of a preferential policy, Other supporting measures also need to be considered.
"China News Weekly" No. 23, 2020
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