In the space of a year, Yang Chanjuan's career plan has changed direction. A soon-to-graduate college student in economics, Yang is feeling her fortunes being buffeted by the financial crisis.
Yang was recently told by her schoolmates already working in the financial sector that their companies would cut staff, or there would no bonus this year. Amid the turmoil and full of uncertainty, a job in banking or securities company was no longer desirable to her. As a result, she decided to apply for a government job.
Yang's change in career plan came as the financial crisis is spreading around the world. As it is now beginning to hit the real economy, more and more people, not only those in banks, have lost their jobs.
International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated earlier that the financial crisis would cost 20 million jobs globally by the end of 2009. The ILO said the new projections could prove to be underestimates if the effects of the current economic turmoil are not quickly confronted and plans laid for the looming recession.
In the birthplace of the crisis, the United States, big companies from Goldman Sachs to Coca Cola, Motorola to Alcoa, have all announced their job cut plans. Economists believed the jobless total could increase by 200,000.
Back to China, unemployment now becomes a concern too. Although with 2-trillion U.S. dollars of foreign reserves, a budget surplus and a controlled capital market, China would suffer limited direct impact from the crisis. However, weakening demand from its major markets, North America and Europe, is now leading China's real economy in the export sectors into a tough situation.
In China's coastal areas, export enterprises are now struggling with soaring labor cost and fewer orders from foreign customers. Many toy factories in South China's Guangdong Province were shut from January to July this year.
Earlier last month, two big factories of a Hong Kong listed toy-maker were shut. As a result, 7,000 workers lost their jobs. Affected by the global financial crisis, the company was suspended from trading thus it faced severe shortage of current funds.
Statistics from the Ministry of Commerce showed that China's export suffered a growth slowdown in the first three quarters compared with the same period last year -- from 27.1 percent to 22.3 percent. The government said the gross domestic product (GDP)growth rate in the first three quarters this year slowed to 9.9 percent - a 2.3 percentage points fall compared with the same period last year.
"The greatest impact is on these labor-intensive, small and medium-sized export enterprises," said Wang Dewen, a labor economist from China Academy of Social Sciences.
These export-oriented enterprises that make China the world's workshop, are mainly small and medium-sized and vulnerable to market changes. These are China's major employers, absorbing 70 percent of the aggregate 20-million new jobs every year.
Wang said that the lower-end labor market, especially the migrant workers who are the biggest source of employees in the export enterprises, would suffer from unemployment. As the crisis is now just beginning to hit the real economy, the whole situation could be worse if there is no countermeasure.
The fear of unemployment is also hovering over other places. College students and white-collar workers are now worried about their future in the open market.
This year witnessed more than one million applicants for China’s yearly civil servant recruitment exam, 200,000 more than that of last year. Millions of visitors even caused a crash of the online application website on its first day of operation.
College graduates are always the biggest source for new civil servants in China. But this year many white-collar workers joined them.
"It is so unstable and full of uncertainty," said Sun Yan, an employee in a foreign-funded company in Qingdao, Shandong Province. Three years after graduation, she changed jobs three times and bought a one-million-yuan (146,000 U.S. dollars) apartment, to which a civil servant at her age cannot afford by himself.
Sun once viewed her instability in career as a motive for hard work, but now she was afraid of losing her job. After sober reflection, she decided to apply for a job in the government. She said many white-collar workers now thought civil servants were the best choice for the time being.
The competition in the exam will be much fiercer than before -- the average admission ratio of the exam rose from 1:60 last year to 1:78. The most popular post, a once neglected grassroots job with the China Disabled Persons Federation, has more than 4,500 applicants.
A recent China Youth Daily survey on website portal Netease.com shows around 86 percent of the 2,440 participants polled considered taking the exam. Only 8 percent said they had not thought of applying for civil servants' exam.
"If it was last year, I would not think of becoming a civil servant," said Yang Chanjuan, "If I get two offers from the government and a bank respectively, I will choose the former one -- it's more stable." Yang applied for a post in an economic planning body in the central government.
Hu Fengling, a professor at the University of International Relations, said at least 70 percent of the graduates in his university would take the exam. Some students in his university admitted that after the outbreak of financial crisis, career stability topped their concerns.
Yang's change coincided with a steep fall in China's stock market index -- from the peak of 6,000 October last year to around1,700 recently. In such a situation she could not she see good prospects in finance in the near future.
He Wei, director of graduate recruitment department of Zhaopin, Ltd., a leading HR service provider in China, said that as for the college students, financial, consulting and trading sectors could recruit fewer next year since employers had drawn up recruitment plans for this year and would make the plans for next year based on the current situations.
He said that as the crisis is continuing, impacts on other manufacturing industries would take time. However, some industries, such as automobiles and steel, recruited fewer graduates than the previous years.
Economists said as a falling foreign demand is a major reason for a slowdown of economic growth as well as the tough situation in the labor market, boosting domestic demand could keep a high growth rate and thus make more job opportunities.
Fortunately, a series of policies made by the government recently could stimulate more spending. Earlier last month the Communist Party of China (CPC) announced a plan allowing farmers to lease or transfer their land-use rights. It is believed that the measure would push consumption in the vast rural area of the country, and thus create more domestic demand and jobs.
Further, in a bid to raise rural incomes more rapidly, the government raised the minimum purchase prices of grains by up to 15 percent next year.
Infrastructure building is another way of boosting demand and employment. The government last week approved a two-trillion-yuan (292 billion U.S. dollars) plan for the construction of a series of railway projects. Officials with the Ministry of Railways estimated it would provide 1.5 million job opportunities. The plan will also fuel growth in industries such as iron and steel, cement and so on.
Zheng Xinli, a senior government policy advisor, said: "In 1997,we dealt with the Asian financial crisis by stimulating domestic economic growth by investing in the construction of highways. This time the money will go on improving the rail network."
(EDITOR'S NOTE: This feature story is provided by China Features, the sole news service on the Chinese mainland offering by-lined feature stories, news analyses and opinion pieces in English, along with photos, about latest major events in China.
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Source: Xinhua
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