Study on the Factors Affecting University Graduates Unemployment Problem in China: Literature Review Approach

This study provides literature review of the high unemployment situation among global youth, Chinese youth and Chinese university graduates. As the world struggles to cope with the far-reaching effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, reducing the unemployment rate among Chinese university graduates has become an important assignment. This study was based on secondary research and conducted a comprehensive literature review, in order to examine the factors affecting university graduates in China. The study found that Chinese university graduates’ unemployment was the main group of China’s unemployed youth population. Chinese graduates’ unemployment rate was higher than that in 2019. The impact of epidemics, increased labour supply, employment discrimination, low employability of graduates, voluntary turnover and disconnection between school and society were important factors affecting university graduates in China. This study pointed out some suggestions to solve this problem. Firstly, national and local governments could actively create conditions to guide the mobility of talents. Secondly, university could strengthen school-enterprise cooperation and flexibly to set up micro-courses for employment-oriented skills.


Introduction
Pandemics posed challenges to global youth employment.This paper embarks on a journey to explore the factors influencing the unemployment of Chinese university graduates.Global academics focus on the problem of unemployment.A person may face the risk of unemployment as long as he or she works (Razak et al., 2014).The disconnection of young people from the labor market and education weakens the development of young people and ultimately weakens many aspects of the development of the country and the welfare of individuals.
Academics from around the world focused on the problem of unemployment.And the policy would prevent the employment challenge from becoming a social disaster (ILO, 2022).
China is a fast-developing country.However, the overall unemployment rate in China has been rising.The unemployment rate in China increased from 2.37% in 1991 to 4.9% in 2022 (figure 1).The rising trend in unemployment was due to the rapid pace of population growth, uneven levels of development across the country's provinces, excess labor, and increasing competition from overseas in domestic manufacturing under the WTO agreement.The interplay of various structural factors made China's unemployment problem difficult to tackle.Youth unemployment and unemployment rate, by sex, world and by country income group, 2019-2022(percentages) Note: Data are estimates up to 2021, and projections for 2022."Youth" refers to ages 15-24.Source: ILOSTAT, ILO modelled estimates, November, 2021.
Table 1 showed that upper middle-income countries had the second highest youth unemployment rate in the world.China was an upper middle-income country.It also indicated that the unemployment rate in China might be higher than many countries in the world.
In fact, China's youth unemployment situation was worse than the projected figures in table 2. From 2021 to 2023, China's youth unemployment rate was rising.In 2021, China's youth unemployment rate was 15.4%.In 2022, China's youth unemployment rate climbed to 19.9%, up 3.7% from the previous year.It was 12% to 16% higher than major economies such as South Korea, the United States, Germany and Japan in the same period.In 2023, China's youth unemployment rate was 17. 3%, 18.1%, 19.6%, 20.4%, 20.8% and21.3% from January to June (Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, 2021-2023).
In contrast, the global average youth unemployment rate in 2022 was lower than that of China.In 2022, the global youth unemployment rate would be around 14.9%.And young people in the labour force were three times more likely to be unemployed than adults.This equated to 69 million young people who were looking for work but could not find it.The global youth unemployment rate (14.9%) in 2022 was lower than the youth unemployment rate (19.9%) in China in 2022 (ILO, 2022;Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, 2022).
The Chinese government also stated that it was difficult for Chinese youth to find jobs.Gao & Cai (2022) believed that the employment problem in China was very prominent.It was mainly manifested in the difficulty of youth employment and the unbalanced employment structure.Among all the groups of unemployment in China, the employment of Chinese university graduates was of particular concern, as unemployed Chinese university graduates were the main group of China's unemployed youth population.The key to reducing the high youth unemployment rate was to alleviate the employment difficulties of university graduates.Moreover, at the same time, the unemployment problem is Guangxi was worse.According to figure 2, we could find that the undergraduate employment rate in Guangxi from 2019 cohort to 2022 cohort was lower than the national average level in China.The trend of undergraduate employment rate was downward, and there was a rapid decline of 9.18% in 4 years.In contrast, the national average employment rate decreased by 3.3%.These data suggested that the employment situation of graduates in Guangxi became more serious.
The "scar effect" of unemployment would have a long-term impact on the quality of graduates' employment and the accumulation of human capital in the future, which would increase intergenerational inequality.In addition, the confidence of society could be affected by the anxiety, disappointment and confusion (Hossain et al., 2018).This feeling was generated by the most dynamic group of graduates in society and could be spread through social media (Zhuo & Zhu, 2023).
China also had another problem.GDP is growing, but unemployment is increasing, which is the opposite of other countries.This phenomenon also violates Okun's law.His law states that if actual GDP growth is two percentage points faster than potential GDP growth, unemployment falls by one percentage point; if real GDP growth is two percentage points slower than potential GDP growth, the unemployment rate is one percentage point higher (Mehdi et al., 2023).Although there are some differences in the size of the corresponding coefficients in the existing studies of Okun's law, scholars generally agree that there is an inverse relationship between the rate of economic growth and the unemployment rate.There is an inverse relationship between economic growth and unemployment rate.
China's economy has grown rapidly since the opening up policy.Every one percentage point of economic growth in China's economy increased employment growth by about 0.4 percentage points, and the employment elasticity coefficient was very high, showing the characteristics of a labour-intensive economy in the 1980s.In the 1990s, although China's economy still maintained a high growth rate, the employment growth rate declined.Each percentage point of economic growth boosted employment growth by about 0.3 percentage points, and the employment elasticity coefficient declined significantly.
In China, by the beginning of the 21st century, each percentage point of economic growth led to employment growth declining to 0.1 percentage point, and rapid economic growth was not accompanied by high employment, but by an increase in unemployment.So, in exploring the causes of China's high unemployment rate, we could pay attention to that the economy of China is one complex factors influencing unemployment rate.

Problem Statement
Covid-19 had a major impact on global economic, educational and social development around the world (Hossain et al., 2023;Hossain et al., 2020).Based on empirical data and evidence, this study examined the employment of Chinese university graduates.One report showed that China's unemployment rate was higher than that of many other countries (World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2022 Report).Therefore, it is important to look at youth unemployment issues globally.In addition, China's youth unemployment rate was on the rise from 2021 to 2023 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2023).In 2022, China's youth unemployment rate climbed to 19.9%, an increase of 3.7% from the previous year.This rate was between 12% and 16% higher than that of major economies such as South Korea, the US, Germany and Japan over the same period.In 2022, China's youth unemployment rate (19.9%) was higher than the global youth unemployment rate (14.9%) (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2021-2023).From January to June 2023, China's youth unemployment rates were 17.3%, 18.1%, 19.6%, 20.4%, 20.8% and 21.3% respectively.
The employment problem of Chinese university graduates is of particular concern, as unemployed Chinese university graduates are the largest group of unemployed youth in China among all unemployed groups.Based on the census and labour statistics, it was estimated that by the end of 2020, university graduates would account for 46% of the 34 million urban youth workers aged 16-24.However, unemployed university graduates accounted for 66% of unemployed urban youth workers.
In such an employment situation, it is particularly important to explore the causes of the employment problem of Chinese graduates.Finding the causes can provide a basis for policy makers, university administrators and others to formulate solutions.Therefore, it is necessary to explore the causes of the high unemployment rate of Chinese university graduates through data analysis.

Limitations
This study has its limitations.The first limitation is that the researchers only selected a number of most important literature on analyze the factors affecting youth employment in China for analysis.And this literature review was carried out from global, regional and China's aspect.Therefore, this study didn't discuss this topic from all aspects.The second limitation is that some important literature may be not found due to the unavailability of relevant resources such as data, reports or articles.In the future, the researchers will conduct the study from more comprehensive perspective, and use more updated data and resources.

Literature Review Key Factors Influencing Youth Employment Situation in China
The COVID-19 has led to economic downturn and job losses (Hossain et al., 2023).There are many factors leading to youth unemployment in China.Firstly, the epidemic is one of the reasons for rising unemployment in Asia and China.
Since the Second World War, COVID-19 was the biggest global crisis (Boccaletti et al., 2020).On the economic front, in contrast to previous years, COVID-19 would also trigger a global economic crisis.The shocks from this crisis would be felt for years to come.The scale of the financial crash in 2021 would be more pronounced than that of the financial crisis in 2009 (Castillo and Melin, 2020).
Under the impact of the epidemic, the unemployment rate in the developing countries of Asia would be three times higher than that in the developed countries in the coming years, and the cost of dealing with the effects of COVID-19 would be twice as high in the developing countries as in the developed countries of Asia (Lai et al., 2021).The unemployment rate would increase with these COVID-19 advances, and the unambiguous chain would be an additional nuisance (Lai et al., 2021).
When labor supply increased, the employment competition among university graduates intensified.China's population is the largest in the world.The huge population base of reproductive age determined that China's annual population increase in the labor force.And this data was about 15 million to 19 million (China Statistical Yearbook, 2022).This situation made the youth employment in China more serious.In addition, since 1999, the enrolment of Chinese universities has been continuously increasing from 2,206,100 in 2000 to 9,674,600 in 2020.There was no downward trend (China Education Statistical Yearbook, 2021).The employment problem of university graduates became an important issue in China's labor market.This problem was exacerbated by the impact of the epidemic, making Chinese university graduates become the most affected group of employment victims.
Table 2 showed the composition of the educational level of the young unemployed in China before and after the COVID-19 epidemic.It could be seen that in 2020 and 2021, when the epidemic hit, the proportion of young unemployed with a bachelor's degree increased significantly.In addition, the delayed retirement plan planned by the Chinese government also put pressure on the employment of future university graduates.Studies showed that the delayed retirement policy would increase the unemployment rate of young workers and have a negative impact on workers' wages through cross-market matching channels (Dai et al., 2022).

Employment discrimination affected job search and wages and incomes
In the process of job hunting, young people would be vulnerable to various unfair treatment and employment discrimination due to experience, education, gender and other reasons (Chen et al., 2023).Employment discrimination was mainly manifested in the form of wage discrimination and occupational discrimination in the labour market (Caglayan-Akay & Komuryakan, 2022).
For example, according to a survey by China's Zhiliang Recruitment Network, 61.2% of women were asked about their marital and childbearing status when looking for a job in 2022, an increase of 6% from 2021 and much higher than the 32.3% of men.This was an indication that women in China were on the rise in terms of employment discrimination.
Table 3 also showed the gender composition of the educational attainment of urban unemployed youth.The data in the table showed that the proportion of unemployed young women with undergraduate and postgraduate degrees was higher than the proportion of unemployed young men, indicating that female university graduates in China faced greater job competition pressure than male university graduates.The priority given to the development of employability skills for employment has been highlighted in recent reports such as Be Skilled, Be Employed, Be the Change Generation and Europe 2020.The importance of acquiring the necessary skills for future employment success was underlined by the publication of the US government's SCANS (Secretary's Commission on Acquiring Necessary Skills) report.As a result, improving employability skills became a key plan in higher education over the past decade (Moore and Morton, 2015).In addition, employability education (e.g.courses) has been used to improve employability in China.
Many researchers believe that employability is one of the factors affecting the employment situation.And scholars had different perspectives on the study of employability.For example, scholars around the world defined employability differently.Yorke (2006) believed that employability was the techniques, knowledge and personal qualities that increased the likelihood of gaining employment and succeeding in one's career, benefiting the individual, the labour market, society and the economy (Yorke, 2006).
Another common early interpretation of employability by external stakeholders was to use a Graduate Destination Survey to measure whether a graduate had secured a full-time job six months after graduation (Department of Education; Science and Training 2002;Harvey 2001).
In addition, Oliver believed that graduates could identify, acquire, adapt and continually improve their skills, understanding and personal attributes.These skills could increase their chances of finding and creating rewarding work that benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (Oliver, 2015).
Graduate employability is a term used to describe the employability skills developed through higher education (Smith et al., 2009).One of the general types of competences concerned is 'vocational competences', which refers to knowing the occupation, knowing how to enter the occupation and knowing how to pursue a career (Freudenberg, Brimble & Cameron, 2009).Scholars in many countries paid attention to the study of employability and come up with many strategies to improve the employability of graduates in their own countries.However, the level of employability of China's university was lower than that of some countries.
According to figure 3, China had only 10 universities in the top 250, compared with 52 universities in the United States.There is no university in Guangxi region of China in the world's top 250.High Voluntary turnover Table 4 showed the composition of the causes of urban youth unemployment in China before and after the COVID-19 epidemic.The data showed that not finding a job after graduation was the main cause of urban youth unemployment, accounting for more than 50%.Another major cause of youth unemployment was voluntary turnover, which accounted for more than 25% of unemployment in both 2019 and 2020.In the 2021 statistics, due to an adjustment in the survey option settings, the voluntary turnover option was removed and two options were added: job dissatisfaction and internship/training.It could be assumed that the range of those who left voluntarily includes all those who are dissatisfied with their job, as well as some who were in work experience or training.This indicated that almost three quarters of urban unemployed youth were voluntarily or frictionally unemployed because they did not meet their employment expectations or their skills did not match the job requirements.

School Education is Out of Step with Social Needs
At present, the development of science and technology is changing with each passing day, and the growth and renewal of knowledge is extremely rapid.On the contrary, the updating speed of school curriculum has lagged significantly behind the development of society (Zhang & Guo, 2015).In the teaching of schools, the transmission of knowledge still occupies an unshakable position, and the goal of intelligence development is largely unrealized.Under the conditions of the market economy, employers pay more attention to the actual work ability of graduates, rather than the academic performance during the school period.
Therefore, in the process of university graduates' job search, many graduates lose employment opportunities due to lack of knowledge and skills in some aspects, which limits the possibility of graduates' development to a broader field and higher level after graduation.On the other hand, capital formation in scientific and technological research and development may exacerbate unemployment (Piva & Vivarelli, 2018).Although product renewal has created and increased employment because it is labour-friendly, such positive effects may not apply to conventional firms and SMEs, such as firms with monopoly power (Barbieri et al., 2014).
Moreover, with the advent of China's Lewis turning point, enterprises have completed the technological replacement of labor under the strong impetus of severe labour shortage and continuously rising labor costs (Du & Wei, 2020), and the large-scale application of robots would be an important driving force to increase the unemployment rate (Du & Wei, 2022).In this context, the talent training goals of the school also need to be adjusted as soon as possible to meet the reduced demand for low-skilled workers in the future and the increased demand for high-quality R&D and design talents.

Research Objective
To study relevant literatures for examining the study on the factors affecting university graduates' employment in China.

Research Objectives
What are the relevant literatures for examining the study of the factors affecting university graduates' employment in China?

Research Methodology
The study is based on secondary research on the factors affecting university graduates in China.This secondary research includes report, journal articles, news and so on.
Comprehensive literature review is carried out and examined the factors affecting university graduates in China.The study analyzed this literature by global, regional and China's perspectives.
Data Analysis Plan a) Identify relevant literatures on the factors affecting university graduates in China.b) Select the most important aspect of the researchers' perception.c) Literature review was carried out on global, regional and China's perspective.

Data Analysis
A global review of the literature has shown that Covid-19 has an impact on employment around the world.Pandemics challenged the global youth workforce.The global youth unemployment rate in 2022 was 14.9%, which was higher than unemployment rate in 2019 (13.5%).The unemployment people in 2022 was 73 million, which is higher than that in 2019 and 2020 (ILO,2022).Around 69 million young people could not be employed in the world.And young academics from around the world focused on the problem of unemployment.Failure to tackle unemployment will be a huge waste of investment in education and a crisis for the country in tackling various climatic, technological and demographic challenges.Moreover, solving the problem of youth unemployment would be the important assignment to restoring economic recovery.If the unemployment situation continues, there will be unrest throughout the country.
A regional review of the literature has shown that the upper-middle income countries' youth unemployment rate was the second highest in the world after the pandemic.The youth unemployment rate in 2022 was 1.4% higher than in 2019.The youth unemployment rate in 2022 reached 16.1%.In 2022, the unemployment rate of women was 2.2% higher than the unemployment rate of men.The number of unemployed people in 2022 was 0.9 million more than in 2019.The number of unemployed women in 2022 was 0.6 million more than that in 2019, and the number of unemployed men in 2022 was 0.3 million more than that in 2019.
A China's review of literature indicated that China's employment situation became tough due to Covid-19 and other reasons.From 2021 to 2023, China's youth unemployment rate was rising.The China's youth unemployment rate was higher than major economies in the same time.In addition, the youth employment rate in China in 2022 was higher than the global average youth unemployment rate (ILO, 2022;Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, 2022).Among all the groups of unemployment in China, the Chinese university graduates was the main group.The key to reducing the high youth unemployment rate was to alleviate the employment difficulties of university graduates.The employment rate of the cohort of 2022 was still significantly lower than the level at the same time in 2021.In addition, the unemployment rate for female graduates was higher (Zhilian recruitment platform report, 2022).Moreover, the employment situation of graduates in Guangxi became more serious.Undergraduate employment rate in Guangxi from 2019 cohort to 2022 cohort was lower than the national average employment rate of undergraduates in China.
The researchers believed that the reasons which influenced Chinese university graduates were Covid-19, employment discrimination, low graduate employability, high voluntary turnover, insufficient school education.First of all, Covid-19 was one of the important reasons.The proportion of young unemployed with a bachelor's degree increased significantly when the epidemic hit (China Population and Employment Statistics Yearbook, 2020, 2021, 2022).Secondly, employment discrimination affected job search and wages and incomes.In the process of job hunting, young people would be vulnerable to various unfair treatment and employment discrimination due to experience, education, gender and other reasons.Thirdly, graduate employability has been the focus of many nations.However, the level of employability of China's university graduates was lower than that of some countries.

Recommendations
This study contributed to the understanding of the status and causes of unemployment among Chinese university graduates, and will lay the groundwork for alleviating the problem of high youth unemployment rate in China for the leaders, policy makers, university administrators.Firstly, national and local governments could actively create conditions to guide the mobility of talents.The college graduates' unemployment in China is characterized by regional imbalance, which shows that the unemployment rate of college graduates in noncoastal (especially in the centre) areas is higher than that in coastal cities.Therefore, the government should reinforce the structure of rural hardware and software under the rural revitalization strategies, narrow the urban-rural gap, support the entrepreneurship and development of small and micro enterprises with local characteristics, and improve the level of social security such as medical care and pension in the central and western regions.At the same time, policies should be introduced to support and guide the regional mobility of college students, to improve the effect of the job matching process and to decrease the unemployment rate of university students in the country.
Secondly, university authority could strengthen school-enterprise cooperation and flexibly set up micro-courses for employment-oriented skills.Subject education in universities needs to be recognized by the state, so the addition or adjustment of professional disciplines must be approved at various levels, which has a certain lagging indicator compared with the rapidly changing social demand for employment.The school could connect with the needs of enterprises in the corresponding industry, and with the help of the hardware and software resources of both schools and enterprises, the school customize micro-courses that can be recognized by leading enterprises.
Compared with traditional courses, the learning content, learning time and learning methods of micro-courses are more flexible and diversified, which can realize learning beyond the scope of university campus with the help of online teaching.This way not only improves the employability of learners, but also brings benefits to the school.

Acknowledgement
The researcher extends their heartfelt gratitude to all the faculty members who generously shared their valuable insights for this study.All the faculty members perspectives from the literatures have been instrumental in shedding light on the factors affecting university graduates' unemployment problem in China.Their contributions have enriched the researcher understanding and will undoubtedly benefit fellow faculty members and researchers in navigating the challenges and opportunities of the dynamic business environment.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Comparison of undergraduate employment rate in Universities of Guangxi and China Source: Guangxi Employment Quality Report in 2019-2022; National Undergraduate Employment Report in 2019-2022

Table 2
Educational Attainment of Urban Unemployed Persons byAge (percentages)

Table 3
Educational Attainment of Urban Unemployed Persons byAge and Sex (percentages) Source: ChinaPopulation and Employment Statistics Yearbook, 2020, 2021, 2022Low graduate employability in China Graduate employability has been the focus of many nations.For example, the Chinese government also paid attention to graduate employability due to the importance of this issue.Since the economic crisis of 2008, employability has become the key of higher education agenda in many western countries(Pegg et al., 2012; Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuuren  Wetenschap, 2015; Artess, Hooley and Mellors-Bourne, 2017).

Table 4
Reason for Ending Previous Job of Urban Unemployed Persons byAge (percentages) China had only 10 universities in the top 250, compared with 52 universities in the United States.Guangxi had no university in the world's top 250(Global University Employability Ranking, 2019-2020).Finally, another major cause of youth unemployment was voluntary turnover, which accounted for more than 25% of unemployment in both 2019 and 2020.Lastly, at present, the development of science and technology is changing rapidly day, but the updating speed of school curriculum in China has lagged significantly behind the development of society.