Business in Shanghai is on fire, but University of Ottawa computer science graduate Wu Yun is depressed. His career is going nowhere.
For months he has been holed up in a small rented room in the Yangpu district, firing off dozens of resumes a day via the internet.
Occasionally his despair has given way to excitement when he has been called up for interviews by multinational companies, such as Microsoft. But despite being willing to settle for a low 3,000 yuan a month wage for a sales job or 4,500 yuan for a technology position, he is not finding any takers.
'I am extremely depressed,' the 25-year-old Jiangxi native said. 'Big companies don't like me because I have no working experience, while small companies will not hire me because they think I will not work for long for such low payment.'
But Mr Wu can take heart, because he is not on his own. Thousands of mainlanders returning from overseas study are searching for their dream jobs, only to find it becoming more and more difficult.
By the end of 2003 more than 580,000 mainland students were studying overseas courtesy of the central government reforms and open policy in the late 1970s, but less than 30 per cent were returning home, according to the Ministry of Personnel. Most of those returning worked in developed areas, with the number of returnees heading for Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Liaoning growing by more than 30 per cent a year over the past couple of years.
