Houston Community News >> China Faces Talent Gap
2/22/2007-- The world’s most
populous country doesn't lack for young university graduates. What it does lack
are young people who have the talent and skills necessary to land a job.
This troubling development was confirmed in a recent survey issued by the China
Youth & Children Research Center, an affiliate agency of the China Communist
Party. The study shows that young college graduates have suffered from declining
rates of employment from 2003 to 2005. The number of college graduates entering
the job market experienced double-digit growth during the period.
Chinese universities turned out a growing number of college graduates between
2003 and 2005 -- at 750,000, 990,000 and 1.2 million, respectively. But their
chances of finding employment have declined consistently during these three
years, the survey said, without specifying why.
The disconnect between the supply of young professionals and real-life job
opportunities is due in no small part to China’s memorization-focused
educational system that fails to equip first-time job seekers with skills in
creative writing, thinking and leadership.
“Making the talent search more difficult is the fact that the more experienced
managers are in short supply and command high salaries,” said Judith Banister, a
Beijing-based program director for the US Conference Board’s Asia-Pacific
Council on Talent, leadership Development and Organizational Effectiveness, “For
multinationals, it is now a challenge not only to recruit the best people, but
also todevelop and retain them.”
The Conference Board, in a statement issued a day earlier, said the number of
Chinese people in their 20s and 30s is shrinking overall, in spite of the
increased number of new college graduates and the expanding pool of people aged
over 40, mainly those who have lost their high education to the tumultuous years
of China’s Cultural Revolution.
This classic phenomenon of a rapidly-aging society has been a byproduct of
China’s long-standing one-child policy. An unintended consequence of it has been
high corporate turnover in China, promoting multinationals such as Intel (nasdaq:
INTC - news - people ) to cultivate their own talents through programs with
local Chinese universities.
The frustration on the employment front has encouraged young people in China to
seek political affiliation as a means to find job placement. Each year, 800,000
people join the country’s powerful China Communist Youth League, the power base
of China’s President, Hu Jintao.
(Contributed by Forbes)