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Job hunting

Illustration: Henry Wong

China’s university students in fierce battle for majors with best job prospects

Many are relying on outdated advice from parents who found it easier to transfer to their preferred disciplines after enrolment.

Many are relying on outdated advice from parents who found it easier to transfer to their preferred disciplines after enrolment

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What are ‘mad skills’ and why do they matter on a CV? Experts explain

Opinion | Beware the upshot of China’s graduates flocking to the public sector

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Explainer | What are ‘full-time children’ jobs? Why do Chinese youth spurn formal work?

The Chinese job market in 2024 is difficult, so many young adults are becoming “full-time children” and taking care of their parents for an allowance.

Experts warned that full-time children are not a sustainable solution to job scarcity and a growing elderly population in China. Photo: SCMP composite/Shutterstock

Young woman in China tricked by employer to take out loan to have plastic surgery

A young woman in China believes she was tricked by her employer, a cosmetic surgery company, into taking out a loan to get a nose job.

Hong Kong bankers have lots of free time, anxiety as deals slump, lay-offs jump

The big China deals that lined rainmakers’ pockets for decades have evaporated. Banks and law firms alike are cutting jobs. Those that remain are chasing smaller deals and taking extended vacations.

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Opinion | Hong Kong needs to roll out the welcome mat for Asean talent. Here’s how

Given Asean engagement is vital to Hong Kong’s relevance and competitiveness, the city must play up its usefulness, lower entry barriers, boost Asean-China collaboration and offer more scholarships.

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Illustration: Craig Stephens

Delivery drivers with advanced degrees? The challenges facing China’s graduates

China’s people are highly educated, so where is the ‘talent dividend’? For many fresh graduates, ‘settling for an opportunity’ is the safer bet, even if it means their degrees go unused in practice.

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As youth joblessness soars, China’s ‘blank paper’ graduates seen as unemployable

With no internships and their degrees earned mostly online, what are 11.58 million students to do when recruiters say employers will ‘just wait for the next batch of graduates’?

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‘More freedom’: China’s youth embrace ‘flexible’ work in bleak job market

With youth joblessness reaching a record high, some universities are again trying to pad the employment figures among graduates by pushing students into freelancing and entrepreneurships.

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Flexible workers in China are finding employment in a range of sectors, including live-streaming and social media content creation. Photo: Getty Images

Opinion | How China’s jobless youth were raised to have unrealistic expectations

A generation of youth has been intensely schooled by private tutors and pumped up by parents’ expectations. The result? A mismatch between the jobs they want and the blue-collar jobs that need filling.

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Graduates attend a job fair at Zhengzhou University in Henan province, China, on April 21. The number of jobless youth is likely to increase in June, when 11.6 million fresh graduates flood the market. Photo: Getty Images

Live-stream job fairs gain popularity in China

Millions of fresh graduates struggle to find jobs in China

China’s rising youth unemployment prompts fresh stability calls by Beijing

Chinese Vice-Premier Hu Chunhua pushes for more effective recruitment initiatives nationwide, and he says greater job creation should occur by any means possible, even as businesses struggle to survive amid zero-Covid.

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China’s zero-Covid policy has exacerbated the difficulties facing fresh graduates in finding work. Photo: Getty Images

China’s youth unemployment hits record high in June: nearly 1 in 5 out of work

China’s broader urban unemployment rate eased slightly to 5.5 per cent in June, continuing trend after touching two-year-high mark in April, but youth unemployment rate soared to 19.3 per cent.

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China’s youth unemployment has been rising steadily since October and breaking records every month since April as new college graduates enter the crowded labour pool. Photo: Reuters

More jobs, better pay for Hong Kong’s fresh graduates

About 17,000 jobs listed on universities’ portal, with average starting pay rising to HK$18,336 a month.

Why China’s under-35s are turning their backs on both private, foreign firms

Amid growing concerns about instability and overwork in the private sector, some fresh grads reject US$63,000 job offers at tech giants to take lowly, albeit stable, civil service jobs working as cyber police.

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Why are China’s fresh grads now saying no to high-paying ‘996’ jobs?

Skyrocketing living costs and mounting uncertainties in China’s job market make the situation unbearable for those who desire security and reasonable working hours that the private sector may not offer.

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Many young Chinese people are embracing the shang’an movement, which literally means ‘going onto the shore’ and refers to a growing desire to seek stable civil service positions. Illustration: Brian Wang

China’s unemployment numbers point to structural problems in labour market

Analysts point to several factors that are draining number of blue-collar workers, and a mismatch between jobs and skills could prevent jobless rate from falling further.

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Desperate Hong Kong job-hunters ‘easy prey’, scammed out of HK$6.4 million in early 2021

One scam saw victims use their own funds to place orders on phoney shopping apps, money that would disappear instead of returning the promised commissions; others found themselves on the hook for loans they were unaware had been taken out in their name

China’s TikTok says it created 36 million jobs as content creation explodes

A new report by Douyin says about 20.97 million live-streamers in China generated income via gifts from fans, advertisement contracts and product sales, among other income sources, in the past year.

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A man walks past a sign depicting the logo of Chinese company ByteDance’s app TikTok, which is known in China as Douyin. Photo: Reuters

Brush up on Mandarin, as China’s banks offer tens of thousands of jobs

China’s largest banks have already been leaned on by Beijing to prop up the economy. They’ve been told to pump cash out to small and medium-sized businesses and forgo profits by lowering interest rates and providing relief on trillions of yuan of troubled loans.

Job seekers at a recruitment fair at Shaanxi University of Science and Technology in Xi'an on April 12, 2019. Photo: Xinhua

Can flexible jobs solve China’s post-virus jobless crisis?

With the domestic economy still struggling to recover after pandemic lockdowns and a broad decline in consumption, many struggling workers have turned to part-time jobs such as street vending and construction.

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China’s young jobseekers struggle despite economic recovery

Almost 9 million people will graduate and enter the job market this year at a time of great uncertainty.

Pandemic drives Hong Kong’s ‘hidden youth’ into isolation again

Reclusive youngsters trying to change suffer a setback as pandemic closes help centres.

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Social workers say the coronavirus has set back progress they were making with some of Hong Kong’s hidden youth. Photo: Shutterstock

Hongkongers returning from mainland end up homeless, jobless

Mandatory quarantine restrictions end freedom to live in Shenzhen, work in Hong Kong

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Chu Lui, who lived in Shenzhen and worked in Hong Kong before the coronavirus pandemic, in his room at Chungking Mansions, Tsim Sha Tsui. Photo: Nora Tam

How to bounce back if you’re laid off from your job amid Covid-19

Redundancy can be an opportunity for education, rebranding, and exploring another industry. Once the shock is over, use the time to turn the loss into an opportunity.

Expect Hong Kong jobless rate to rise for sixth straight month, officials warn

City’s No 2 official Matthew Cheung and finance chief Paul Chan present grim outlook on their blogs.

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Job hunting
All you need to know about job hunting, including job hunting resources and websites, what to look for in a job, career advice and writing a CV and cover letter.
last updated:
9 September, 2024
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