The education is getting higher and higher, but the job is becoming more and more difficult to find, which has almost become a consensus among fresh graduates.
According to the "2024 College Student Employability Survey Report" released by Zhaopin, in 2024, the offer acquisition rate of fresh graduates with master's and doctoral degrees will be 44.4%, a decrease of 12.3% from last year, and lower than the 45.4% of undergraduates.
Source: Zhaopin's "2024 College Student Employability Survey Report"
While the rate of graduate offers is declining, the number of college graduates in mainland China this year is expected to reach 11.79 million, an increase of 210,000 year-on-year, and a record high. Graduate students are facing another "no hardest, only harder" employment season.
"High education" encounters "low employment rate"
Every job hunting season, posts such as "I haven't found a job one year after graduating with a master's degree", "0 offers from 985 masters so far", and "4500 after returning from a master's degree in three years" are flooded on social media.
For master's students, the motivations for choosing graduate school are varied. According to a survey conducted by China Youth Daily, 74.0% of the respondents said that the postgraduate entrance examination was to improve their academic qualifications and increase the advantage of finding a job, and 59.6% of the respondents were to relieve the employment pressure.
But the reality is that the more you put in, the more you get in return.
In the process of job search, whether it is salary or job type, most master's job search expectations are higher than those of undergraduates, but the job search is not as smooth as expected. According to the survey, the expected monthly salary of the 2024 master's and doctoral graduates will reach 12,083 yuan, far exceeding the 6,898 yuan of undergraduates, and there is a significant gap between this expectation and the actual market demand.
Source: Little Red Book
The survey shows that the offer acquisition rate of non-"double first-class" master's and doctoral graduates is 33.2%, down 17% from last year, and 10.7% lower than that of undergraduate graduates from ordinary universities. There is no aura of a prestigious school, but the academic qualifications are at the upper level, and they are the majority of the entire master's degree group, and the embarrassing position makes it inevitable that there will be a situation of "high and low" in the job market.
On the other hand, there are not enough jobs in the existing job market to match master's students, and the number of mid- to high-end jobs is decreasing. A research team found that the proportion of master's degrees in the resumes received by enterprises is still increasing, but at present, 70%-80% of the positions are front-line basic posts, and to be qualified for these positions, a bachelor's degree is often enough, and companies also tend to recruit "cheaper" undergraduates. Therefore, many master's degree graduates will find that after a few more years of study, they still have to compete with undergraduates.
However, it is undeniable that the average monthly and starting salaries of recent graduate students have increased compared to undergraduate students.
According to the research team of Peking University's "National Survey on the Employment Status of College Graduates", the average monthly starting salaries of doctors, masters, and undergraduates in 2021 are 14,823 yuan, 10,113 yuan, and 5,825 yuan, respectively; The median values were 15,000 yuan, 9,000 yuan, and 5,000 yuan, respectively. The "2022 Human Resources Market Wage Price and Industry Labor Cost Information in Sichuan and Chongqing" released in September 2023 also shows that the higher the education level of employees in Sichuan and Chongqing, the higher the level of salary and remuneration, and the median salary and remuneration of graduate and undergraduate workers are 152,300 yuan/year and 89,600 yuan/year, respectively.
In the face of an uncertain environment, the mentality of graduates looking for jobs has gradually changed from "seeking good" to "seeking stability".
According to the survey, 51% of the 2024 job-seeking graduates believe that "stability is the most important", an increase of 10 percentage points compared to last year, and they are more enthusiastic about working "within the system". At the same time, the time for graduates to join the job search army is also in advance, more than 6 percent of the 2024 graduates, starting to look for jobs 1 year in advance.
Strength exceeds 10,000 "volumes"
Job search concepts and job market situation are part of the reasons for the "inversion of academic qualifications", and more and more graduates with master's degrees or even higher education are pouring into the market, which is actually the "sequelae" of graduate student recruitment.
This year's graduation of the Master's degree should come from students admitted in 2021 or 2022. According to the Ministry of Education, in 2021, there were 1,176,500 graduate students, including 1,050,700 master's students. In 2022, a total of 1,242,500 graduate students will be enrolled, including 1,103,500 master's students. By 2023, the number of graduate students will climb again, with a total of 1,301,700 students enrolled nationwide, and 1,148,400 master's students, an increase of 4.07% over the previous year.
The number of students is also growing in steps, as well as the number of graduate students, and the postgraduate entrance examination market has even set off a wave of "reverse postgraduate examination" from "double first-class" universities to ordinary universities, and this "boomerang" from three or four years ago is in the "eyebrows" of master's students today.
Under the expansion of enrollment, some provinces and cities have even seen the phenomenon of this research being upside down.
Source: Weibo
As the place with the highest concentration of high-quality educational resources in the country, the "Statistical Overview of the Development of Education in Beijing in the 2022-2023 Academic Year" released by the Beijing Municipal Education Commission shows that the number of full-time graduates in Beijing colleges and universities is expected to be about 296,000, including 160,800 graduate students (master's and doctoral), nearly 25,000 more undergraduates, and the number of graduate students is expected to exceed that of undergraduate students for the first time. In data released by the Beijing Municipal Education Commission in March 2024, the difference grew to 29,000.
In the 2024 postgraduate examination, the number of applicants for postgraduate entrance examination ushered in the first decline in nearly 9 years. Behind the cooling down of the "postgraduate entrance examination fever", more college students have in-depth thinking and careful consideration for future career planning. For master's students who are studying or have graduated, academic qualifications are not useless, and they are still a stepping stone to many industry positions. For example, medical students often need to complete a master's degree or even a doctorate in order to get a place in the job market. In addition, there are some new tracks, and the demand for new master's students is gradually increasing. According to the statistics of Liepin big data, the demand for new energy vehicles, new materials, new energy and other industries for new master's students increased by more than 100% year-on-year. Industries with high technology content such as artificial intelligence, big data, and biotechnology also have relatively high educational thresholds.
The job market has periods of low tides, but also periods of upswings. With the upgrading of social needs, multi-skilled compound talents will be more favored, and from a longer-term time scale, graduate students' theoretical literacy, ability to perceive problems, and future development potential will definitely have relative advantages. Plan ahead, accumulate strength, explore more, and find a suitable force point for yourself, and you may be able to break a path in the employment dilemma.