Graduates with masters degrees offered monthly salaries of 1,600 yuan at job fair in northern China
Students with good degrees say it is becoming increasingly difficult to find decent paying jobs
A recent graduate with a master’s degree from an overseas university has been offered a monthly salary of just 1,600 yuan (HK$1,900) at a job fair in North China, mainland media reports.
Several graduates with master’s degrees interviewed by China Youth Daily at the event in Tianjin said they had trouble finding reasonably paid jobs, the Beijing-based newspaper reported on Friday.
The job fair was held on March 17-19 at Nankai University in Tianjin.
Zhang Yao, 25, from Tianjin, also has not found a job after graduating with an Masters in Business Administration from a leading university in South Korea, the Daily reported on Friday.
While applying for the position of Korean language teacher at the fair, Zhang was offered a basic salary of 1,600 yuan a month.
There were as many as 3,000 Korean companies opening businesses and factories in Tianjin when she graduated with a bachelor’s degree, Zhang said. That prompted her to study for an MBA in South Korea in the hope of landing a better-paying job.
But since she graduated, Zhang found that most Korean companies were laying off more staff than they were recruiting.
Being offered only 1,600 yuan makes me feel that all the qualifications I’ve earned over the years have been disregarded
Many attendees expressed frustration with being caught in between the competition from holders of bachelors’ degrees and doctorates.
“Compared to graduates with bachelor’s degrees, we are older. But our professional qualifications are not as high as those with doctorates,” said Dou Qiang, who holds a master’s degree from a university in southern China. Most companies in Tianjin offered the same salary to candidates with bachelor’s and master’s degrees, he added.
Dou said in the report that his expected salary was about 4,000 to 5,000 yuan a month, but he still found it hard to get a job.
Meanwhile, Zhang said the feeling of being devalued was worse that the low salary: “Being offered only 1,600 yuan makes me feel that all the qualifications I’ve earned over the years have been disregarded.”
According to the government, 7.65 million university student will graduate this year, an increase of about 160,000 from last year.
