Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is a great privilege for me to be with you today to learn form and share with you my ideas on the issue of the employment of college graduates.
Employment is a topic of common concern all around the globe. College graduates, as a high qualified component of human resources, have attracted wide attention by the society. The employment of college graduates, though an important part of the overall social employment system, has its own special features and complexity. The Chinese government has always attached great importance to the employment of college graduates. In recent years, the government has taken a series of policies and measures in light of real situations and characteristics of college graduates to proactively promote their employment and remarkable results have been witnessed. An employment mechanism for college graduates that features “market orientation, government coordination, college recommendation, and students and employers two-way choice” has taken its initial shape.
China is a nation with a huge population, but by no means a strong nation with large quality human resources. Historical reasons have resulted in the relatively low educational attainment of China 's labor force and the scarcity of talents for science and technology innovation. According to recent statistics, among all the employed population in the year 2000, only 5% have two years of college education or more; whereas the same figure in OECD countries had reached 26% in 1998. In another case, among the 70 million technical workers in the nation's urban enterprises, only 3.5% are leveled as senior technical workers or above. In the past few years, great achievements in China 's higher education have attracted world attention with the gross enrollment of higher education rising to 17%, which, however, did not fill much the big gap between China and developed countries. College graduates, as a special, creative, energetic and innovative group, are a precious human resource urgently needed for China 's modernization drive. All things considered, the quantity of college graduates is still not enough to satisfy the needs for China 's social and economic development.
Nevertheless, the employment of Chinese college graduates, like that in many other countries in the world, is facing a lot of new situations and issues. Firstly, China has a huge population with relatively scarce resources, a difficulty that is reinforced by the fact that we are in a period of transformation of economic system and the adjustment of economic structure, making the overall situation for employment even more serious. Secondly, the number of college graduates has increased gradually with an even rapid increase in recent years. This year 2.8 million students will graduate from higher education institutions, representing a 680,000 increase over last year. Thirdly, the unsatisfactory work in some localities resulted in the still imperfect market-oriented employment mechanism for college graduates, the lack of complimentary policies, and the existing of structural barriers. Fourthly, the academic programs and the model of talent training in some higher education institutions have some features not compatible with economic and social development, which then leads to the structural contradiction between graduates and market needs. Besides, a small number of graduates hold excessive expectations for employment, and some employers place insufficient emphasis on the improvement of employee structure and the upgrading of employee quality, which also impacted negatively on the employment of college graduates.
With all these problems and difficulties, the Chinese government as usual believes that the problems in the employment of college graduates are problems in the process of development and difficulties on the way ahead. It is also believed that with serious efforts from all parties concerned, employment of college graduates could be solved in a satisfactory manner. Now, with a high sense of responsibility, the government is strengthening reform and macro-coordination to overcome the policy and structural barriers to proactively promote the employment of college graduates while making great efforts to develop the national economy. Our goal is to establish a working management system and operation mechanism for the employment of college graduates with Chinese characteristics that satisfy the needs in the new era after 3-5 years of work. For this purpose, we are taking the following measures aimed at both the problems and their causes to promote the employment of college graduate with full force.
Creating an Optimal Policy and Institutional Environment for the Employment of College Graduates. For this, we need to further push forward the reform in personnel regulations, labor and hiring regulations, residence registration regulations and social security system to promote the employment of college graduates. We should also abide by the requirement of “examination before admission” in the recruitment of civil servants in governmental bodies at all levels. We should also proactively push forward the reform of semi-government agencies, dismissing personnel that are not qualified to make room for college graduate. Meanwhile, we should also explore the establishment of an effective system of human resources reserve specifically targeted at college graduates. It is also vital to stipulate and concretely enforce various supporting policies and measures to encourage entrepreneurship to create companies, flexible and alternative job choice and employment at non-publicly owned economic organizations, so that their legitimate rights could be protected.
Nurture and Develop an Employment Market for College Graduates. In the context of socialist market economy, the basic venue for the solution of the employment of the labor force is to rely on market mechanism. So the basic venue for the solution of the employment of college graduates lies also on the market. At the present time, in response to the problems of segmentation, unregulated order and self-protected information in the employment market, the government is taking further measures to proactively promote the merge of the employment market for college graduates, the talent market and the labor force market to realize the sharing of resources from various types of employment markets. At the same time, the government is also taking measures to regulate the order of various kinds of Job Fairs for college graduates to truly protect their legitimate rights.
Construct a More Complete Service System for the Employment of College Graduates. The service system is to be composed of two major parts, namely the government system and the higher education institutions' internal systems. Concerned departments of the State Council ( China 's Central Government) have established a mechanism of coordination for the employment of college graduates, local governments have established coordinating agencies specifically for this matter and Employment Counseling and Service Centers, making the employment of college graduates high on the agenda of the government. Higher education institutions have established a counseling and service system for college graduates employment and regarded it as an important part of the establishment of modern university system and educational reform. A system for college graduates employment consisting of university leadership, administrative agencies, schools and departments, counselors and professors has also taken shape. In addition, as an important component of the establishment of the service system, we are making faster paces in the application of information technology in the employment of college graduates, hoping to make the Internet portals as the main channel of serving the graduates for employment.
Widening the realm of Employment, encouraging Graduates to Establish Their Careers at the Grassroots Level and to create Their Own Enterprises. Presently, China 's high level human resources are concentrated in the East and major cities, while the Great West and the counties and townships are in urgent need of a large contingent of such talents. We are taking various measures to attract and encourage college graduates to find employment in these areas, including requiring the major programs that are supported by the government, such as the Development of the Great West, The Reformation of Old Northeastern Industrial Base, and the Universalization of the Two Basic of Education in the Western Area, to recruit college graduates in an proactive manner. The national government has also launched the program of Volunteers of College Graduates to Serve the West, and the local governments have also initiated similar volunteer programs to serve the grassroots, directing college graduates to serve in the poor areas of their own regions. The central government, local governments and higher education institutions have made preferential policies to encourage and support college graduates to find employment in the grassroots poor areas and creating their own enterprises.
Continuously deepening the reform of higher education, upgrading the overall quality and employment compatibility of students in an all-round manner. We are directing higher education institutions to accept new philosophies about talents, development and quality so that they can adjust their academic programs and size of admissions, reform the training model, contents of instruction and pedagogy according to the needs of socio-economic development. The stresses are especially focused on directing vocational colleges to be oriented by the market and employment needs to strengthen the training of hands-on abilities of students in real work place. Moreover, the training pattern in vocational institutions should be changed to an ‘order-oriented style to push forward the work of making the conferring of two certificates (the certificate of graduation and the certificate of vocational qualifications) as the objectives of teaching. Local governments and relevant central government departments have begun to make the employment results of college graduates as one of the important index for higher education institution deployment, development plans formulation, the establishment of academic programs, the scale of new recruitment, academic instruction evaluation, budget appropriation and the assessment of the leadership groups. The universities are required to closely connect the training of talents with the needs of the employment market. In this way, the universities are expected to gain their own characteristics.
The higher education institutions are also proactively working in the education and counseling of students, helping them to understand accurately the situation of employment market, thus setting realistic expectations for their own employment. Governments at various levels, universities and communities of the society are also proactively helping graduates with specific difficulties in many ways, especially those from remote rural areas, some female graduates and graduates that are majored in not-urgently-needed subject areas in the employment market, to give them more concerns, care and attention, so that they can find their jobs.
The employment of college graduates is a significant issue related to the overall national situation. The proper solution to this issue is both conducive to the protecting of the rights and benefits of the people, but also to the development of the economy and society. In the new situation, we will proactively learn from the experiences gained in other nations, continuously explore and perfect the mechanism that has long-term effectiveness, and find better ways to further develop and utilize college graduates as a precious part of human resources.

Thank you all.