Leaders urge students to seek employment in countryside
State leaders are using the May 4 commemoration as an occasion to urge university students to let go of their comfortable lives in the cities and find jobs in small counties, towns and even the quake-hit areas - an obvious attempt to ease pressure on the job market.
At a meeting with China Agricultural University students on Saturday, President Hu Jintao avoided two major themes of the May Fourth Movement - science and democracy - and urged students to work at the grass-roots levels instead.
'In recent years, many students have responded to the government call and worked at the grass-roots level, and they have outstanding achievements ... I hope more students can learn from them and go to the grass-roots level to use their talents,' Mr Hu said.
It is a tradition for state leaders to meet university students to mark the important student and literature movement in Chinese history. Mr Hu's remarks highlighted the government's concerns over the potentially record-high unemployment for the 6 million university students who will graduate this year. In a similar tone, Premier Wen Jiabao urged Tsinghua University students yesterday to find jobs in the quake-hit areas in Sichuan after their graduation.
Mr Wen appealed for compassion from the students and told them to look west for jobs, pointing to Sichuan's Wenchuan county as a good choice.
'Wenchuan is in urgent need of talent in different respects, including people who can help in the rehabilitation of infrastructure and teachers for local schools,' he said in response to a question from a Shanghainese student.
'I hope you can go there and do your work properly. When you are able to mingle with the local residents, you can become both a Shanghainese and a Wenchuan person.'
With the 20th anniversary of the June 4 crackdown still looming, mainland leaders are anxious that large numbers of jobless university graduates might cause social instability.
