Degree no job guarantee in China

Sun never heard back from that prospective employer nor from dozens of other companies and government agencies where she has applied since she graduated in June. Recently, after tearful self-reflection and long nights tossing in bed, she pared down her expectations and began sending her resume to small businesses offering salaries as low as $140 a month, a third of what she had hoped to make.

As each jobless day passes and Sun lives off a $100 monthly allowance from her parents, she feels more and more guilty.

"All along, I thought if I went to a good university, everything would be fine," Sun said on a recent snowy afternoon. Her eyes welled with tears as she went on. "At first, it was hard to believe. I considered myself to be quite excellent. I'm struggling to accept this."

Until the start of this decade, a college degree in China put you in elite circles. The government arranged jobs for graduates in public agencies or state-owned enterprises. Unemployment wasn't an issue.

But of the nearly 5 million young people who graduated in June, about 1.45 million were still unemployed in the fall, according to a study published last month by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Researchers estimated that by year-end, about 75% of the recent graduates had found jobs.

China's graduate employment rate compares favorably with countries such as Japan, where 68% got jobs by the end of the year. No such comprehensive statistic exists for the United States. But Yang Dongping, a Beijing scholar who wrote the academy's report, cautioned that many schools in China were known to exaggerate placement figures. Whatever the true numbers, Yang said, "Without doubt, it's harder and harder for graduates to find jobs."

That is evident in Wuhan, a city of about 10 million on the Yangtze River. Based on employment contracts and school certificates, officials said, the employment rate for university graduates in this city by year-end fell from 83% in 2003 to 73% in 2006. Their average monthly take-home pay is $200 to $240 -- compared with about $160 for all Wuhan residents.