The mainland economy is renowned for its oversupply of cheap, unskilled labour, but now it seems China is developing an oversupply of educated workers, as growing numbers of graduates find that a degree is no longer a guarantee of employment.
Crowded job fairs, mountains of resumes and endless interviews are becoming the norm for students graduating from China's universities and colleges.
Liu Jingming, a masters graduate from Peking University's law department this year, said it was much harder to find a satisfactory job than it was a few years ago.
'When I graduated from college three years ago, there were more job opportunities available and it was easier to get offers from places like law offices, insurance companies, courts, banks and big enterprises,' he said.
Liu isn't alone. Growing numbers of mainland graduates are finding that, whereas the state once guaranteed employment the minute they stepped out of school, the realities of an increasingly free market mean there is no longer the same demand for skills and the spectre of unemployment looms large in front of them.
Despite a booming mainland economy, unemployment among graduates has skyrocketed in the past four years, from 300,000 in 2000 to 636,000 last year. The figure is expected to be 800,000 this year.
Beijing's Ministry of Personnel statistics show that 2.8 million students graduated from China's 1,683 universities and colleges this year. It estimates that up to 30 per cent of them won't get jobs.