Amidst the continuous decline in the Chinese economy and the rising unemployment rate, college graduates are facing survival challenges. Recently, the news of three master’s degree holders working as janitors and miscellaneous workers in a university dormitory has sparked attention on the internet.
According to the recruitment announcement of Baoshan University, Yunnan Province, the college’s logistics service company plans to hire seven personnel including dormitory managers and security personnel, with 4 master’s degree holders, 2 bachelor’s degree holders, and 1 junior college degree holder. Among the 4 master’s degree holders, 3 applied for the dormitory manager positions.
On September 20th, a staff member at Baoshan University confirmed the recruitment situation to be true. The positions are non-official, and there is no requirement for a master’s degree. The personnel were selected based on merit, and the exact salary for the positions was not disclosed.
In the list of successful applicants, among the top 15 candidates for the dormitory manager position, 6 are postgraduates, with the top three candidates being selected based on comprehensive exam scores. The three prospective dormitory managers come from majors such as Mechanical Engineering at North China University, Environmental Science at Yunnan Agricultural University, and Agricultural Management at Southwest Forestry University.
Public information shows that the company is a subsidiary of a state-owned enterprise fully invested by Baoshan University, mainly providing services such as property management, campus greening, cleaning, catering, and security for the school. In early August, the company issued the recruitment notice.
Following the attention this matter received, the webpage of the Baoshan University Logistics Service Limited Company, where the public notice was released, can no longer be accessed.
According to Xiaoxiang Morning News, the screenshot of the public notice was active from August 24th to August 28th, but the website is currently inaccessible. On September 19th, when reporters from Xiaoxiang Morning News contacted the company, the staff confirmed the existence of the public notice but declined to disclose further details.
Coincidentally, recently, a physics master’s degree holder was found on the newly hired temporary miscellaneous workers list at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics Suzhou affiliated middle school. The 2024 new graduate recruitment list of the Palace Museum also featured a graduate majoring in Software Engineering from Peking University, who applied for a frontline security position in the Security Department.
The latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China shows that the unemployment rate among youth aged 16 to 24 rose to 18.8% in August, reaching a new high in nearly 8 months.