China jobs: Chinese universities vow to target fake graduate data as employment outlook worsens
- Authorities spurred into action by reports of students forced to accept bogus work offers and colleges threatening to withhold graduation certificates
- Youth unemployment set to worsen as economy struggles to make a post-pandemic recovery
Universities in China have been told to verify graduate employment rates amid concerns that some institutions could be submitting fake data to burnish their reputations.
Central South University in the central province Hunan said on Friday that it would conduct checks to ensure the “authenticity and credibility” of university’s data to determine the “real employment situation”.
In response to orders from the Ministry of Education and province’s education department, the university said staff would have to substantiate submissions from students categorised as self-employed, freelancing, consulting or working overseas.
Hunan’s Changsha University of Science and Technology and Anhui Normal University’s Wanjiang College have also published similar notices following the ministry’s warnings against misreporting employment figures.
“The special inspection of employment statistics of college graduates across the country will cover colleges and universities in all provinces, and serious accountability will be carried out for problems found depending on the seriousness of the circumstances,” the college said at the end of May.
