The Corona virus has greatly impacted us all. This is also true for young people in mainland China. Some 8.7 million Chinese university students are set to graduate this summer, but they will enter the worst job market in recent memory. Young people who were thinking that finishing university with a decent degree was the start of a good career in a well-paying job are now facing a great deal of uncertainty.
Su Yuxin has always looked forward to graduation. The 21-year-old dreams of making it as a hip-hop music producer. When she landed an internship at a famed music label in Beijing, she was excited to move on from her life in a lesser-known university in southern China.
Now, with a pandemic weighing on the global economy, millions of students like Su have bigger things to fret about than being unable to land a dream job out of the gate. Her internship at the music label ended abruptly in February when her employer laid off all interns in response to a new coronavirus that was spreading across the country.
“The uncertainty makes me scared,” said Su, who is now interning at an e-commerce company. “I am working as hard as I can to turn this internship into a job offer. If that fails, I might apply for graduate school overseas.”
One feels for these young graduates as the world they are now facing was not what they had planned for. Graduates tend to be one of the hardest hit groups during an economic downturn. It may be many years before the jobs market returns to something similar to pre-crisis level and many graduates may be joining the long term unemployment queues.
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.