Imagine preparing for two years and passing the demanding gaokao (a pre-university exam that is among the most difficult in China) and, then, having finally finished university, ending up as a cremation worker.

Last month, three graduates were hired by a government-run funeral centre in Guangzhou. Their job includes working night shifts and handling dead bodies. One of the three has a Masters in Philosophy from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, which has Nobel winners as alumni and staff. The other two had passed out from universities in Guangzhou which average students would find difficult to get into.

This was not a freak happening — a vacancy which was somehow grabbed by over-qualified, unemployed youth. Last year, two graduates were hired by the municipal government in Guangzhou to sort garbage, while a government-run tobacco company in Henan created a furore when it revealed that one-third of its factory-floor recruits were post-graduates.

Faced with a serious unemployment problem — in March, 15.3% of the urban youth were unemployed — the government has started advising graduates not to look down on the few jobs that are available. Last year, President Xi Jinping told them that “choosing to eat bitterness is also choosing to reap rewards.” The phrase, ‘eat bitterness’, means voluntarily putting up with hardships to get success. Recalling his own experience of working in the countryside during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Xi told the youth they should seek out “self-inflicted hardships.”

The youth are doing just that, but not voluntarily. Faced with the drying up of sought-after sectors such as IT and finance, especially after the strict Covid-19 lockdowns, graduates are applying for whatever is on offer. The government ascribes this depressing situation to the “popularisation of education”. Not only has the number of high school students choosing to sit for the gaokao gone up, but more and more graduates are appearing for entrance exams for post-graduate studies and even sitting for the gruelling civil services exam, because there are just no jobs.

Swallow a bitter pill

With 13 million jobs needed to be created every year, provincial governments too are pushing jobs that require certain skills, but perhaps not a college degree. Thus the skills required of funeral workers and those looking after the elderly were showcased at a national contest held in Nanjing last week. After seven preliminary rounds, 307 contestants took part in the contest organised by two ministries and the federation of trade unions.

Governments have also come up with more appropriate, though not necessarily more appealing, jobs for graduates. The latter are being hired to work in government departments in the countryside on a one-year probation, after which they might be absorbed. The pay is not great, but free lodging and boarding are provided. Even those with PhDs are applying, because of the promise of a stable government job at the end of one year.

One youngster who took up a job under this scheme quit after a few months. She described feeling “trapped” in the “outdated” desert city to which she had been sent. Expectedly, the government accused her of defaming the city, and her university declared that she did not represent all its students.

Interestingly, this graduate wrote that she had had nine tempting offers from private companies, but her mother forced her to take up a government job. By obeying her mother, she wrote, she had “sold and betrayed her freedom and soul.” Not everyone is lucky enough to have such choices; for many, the only option is a sales job. In contrast, a job as a government school teacher or one in a government library may be unglamorous, but it is for life.