China Warns College Graduates of Grim Employment Situation Due to Coronavirus

SEATTLE - Feb. 12, 2020 - PRLog -- China's Ministry of Education has issued a caution to new college graduates in China that they will likely experience difficulty getting hired after graduation, due to the impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). The job market in China has recently come to a virtual standstill due to coronavirus fears. In addition, the resulting economic downturn will have a lasting effect on hiring, making 2020 a poor year to be graduating from college in China.

"Taking into consideration the downward pressure on the economy and the additional impact of the coronavirus, we expect higher education graduates in the first half of this year will face a more complex and grim employment situation," said Wang Hui, Director of the Higher Education Department at China's Ministry of Education.

China is expecting an increase of 400,000 new graduates in 2020 to more than 9.1 million graduates. In contrast, the US college market has a relatively stable number of new college graduates each year at just under 4 million.

Wang added the Ministry of Education has a plan for helping college students find jobs, including increasing use of online recruitment and allowing schools to hold necessary residential paperwork for two years.

While China is being impacted by the coronavirus, the US entry level job market is projected to be on a record pace for hiring of new college graduates in 2020.  According to a new entry level hiring survey of more than 400 large US employers, hiring of new college grads in 2020 is projected to be up 5.5% over the previous year. CollegeGrad.com just released its annual update to the Top Entry Level Employers survey.

"Will the coronavirus have an impact on US entry level hiring in 2020?  At this point in time, the answer is no.  None of the US employers we surveyed were reducing their entry level hiring estimates due to an impact from the coronavirus," said Brian Krueger, CEO of CollegeGrad.com. "However, if the coronavirus spreads more broadly outside China, it could have an impact in hiring, especially if fears escalate about large gatherings of people such as job fairs. Another potential impact could be a broader global economic downturn outside of China. At this point the view is that the US job market is largely unaffected. But this is a quickly evolving virus and could eventually make an impact in the US if not quickly brought under control."

The full survey results of the Top Entry Level Employers in the US are now available online at CollegeGrad.com/topemployers. The list includes employer detail pages displaying projected hires for 2020 along with direct links to each employer's website.