China youth unemployment: female humanities graduates, poor students among the least successful jobseekers, Zhaopin CEO says
- Science majors, men and graduates from well-known universities are having a better time finding jobs in China, says Guo Sheng at a Luohan Academy summit
- Young people from impoverished households and workers aged above 35 are also having a tough time in the current job market, he says
Women who hold humanities degrees from lesser-known universities are among three groups of jobseekers having the hardest time finding work in China amid record-high youth unemployment, according to Guo Sheng, CEO of Zhaopin, one of the country’s largest online recruiting platforms.
While the Beijing-based internet recruiter has been designing new algorithms to help desperate jobseekers find suitable opportunities, the situation is the most “painful” for female jobseekers who graduated with non-STEM degrees from schools outside the government’s “985” and “211” projects – a list that includes prestigious names such as Tsinghua and Peking, Guo said.
“Science majors are OK. Men are OK. And [those from] well known universities are OK,” Guo said at a panel discussion during the annual digital economy conference hosted this week by Alibaba Group Holding’s open think tank Luohan Academy in Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province.
Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
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