Born under the ‘One Child Policy’, the post-90s generation are well known for their free will and inner motivation. Their stickiness to mobile and online has greatly influenced many companies in China. And now, with many of them graduating, how will they affect China’s job market?
“What is important for post-90s is not whether they should work long hours or not, but rather knowing why they work,” Sheng Guo, CEO of Zhaopin says.
According to him, companies need to pay more attention to creating company values and mission in order to motivate their young employees.
Here are 4 takeaways from Sheng Guo on how the post-90s generation is affecting China’s job market.
1. Chinese graduates are not in a hurry to find a job
China is experiencing a high unemployment, but Chinese graduates are not in a hurry to find a job. Students live with and depend on their parents even after graduating from university. Many graduates do not even want to find a job, preferring to pursue a graduate degree or study abroad. This is not directly linked to the market or the economy itself, rather this is the overall trend reflecting their personal life choices.
2. Name brand universities are preferred by employers
Students graduated from the top universities such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Fudan University are particularly sought-after by companies. By contrast, students from other universities will find it particularly hard to find a job.
3. Emerging internet companies are more keen to recruit university graduates
This year, BAT [Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent] has decreased the recruitment of graduates. Next year, I think BAT would still need to recruit people. In fact, in the Internet industry, the one who has a big appetite for recruiting fresh university graduates is not BAT, rather it’s emerging Internet companies in China. We see the largest recruitment this year is coming from the Internet industry, mostly small- and medium-sized companies with less than 20 employees. They are very active and, of course, this also gives us a lot of confidence to be more optimistic about the job market next year, because these companies have considerable economic vitality.
4. Less Chinese graduates are inclined to start their own business
The most discussed topic among university students is about starting their business the most, but we see the university graduate choosing to start their business has fallen down from 6% last year, to 3% this year. Students understand starting their own business is not the best choice, but a good supplement for their carrier. Internet companies and finance companies are indeed the main sectors that show huge employment of college students.
Zhaopin, China’s online recruitment platform announced China’s Best Employers on Thursday. Along with the announcement, they released new trends in job market based on its database of 100 million users on its website. Among these users, a few million are university graduates with the rest made up by white-collar workers from different industries. Founded in 2004, Zhaopin went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014.
Image Credit: Shutterstock, TechNode