China is facing a nagging social problem as young college graduates -- the nation's future elites -- find it increasingly difficult to land hoped-for jobs even though the nation's economy is booming.
To get employed, many have to get by with low-paying jobs that have swollen the ranks of the working poor with college degrees.
They are the fast-expanding ''ant tribes'' of China, young graduates who, the Chinese media say, squeak by with unstable jobs, live in shared rooms and spend hours commuting from the outskirts of the city.
About 6.6 million university students in China are scheduled to graduate this year, and it has been estimated that only about 70 percent of them have managed to line up a job.
Nationwide, the ranks of ant tribes -- young graduates with jobs that pay about 2,000 yuan a month (or US$300) -- have reportedly climbed to several million people.
The Chinese government recently convened the National People's Congress, and unemployment was high on the parliamentary agenda.
With calls for pro-democracy ''Jasmine Revolution'' rallies stirring in the background, the government has vowed to focus on the issue of employment for young college graduates.
Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to spend 42.3 billion yuan to create jobs for college graduates, such as expanding the government's job-training program.
In contrast to the growing frustration among young college graduates in the cities, jobs are plenty in the manufacturing bases in China's booming coastal cities.
The shortage of jobs in the industrial towns, however, centers mostly on simple assembly-line factory work, not stable white-collar jobs most young college graduates yearn for.
Yin Weimin, China's human resources and social security minister, has urged young college graduates to ''go to the interior'' and look for jobs away from coastal regions and help develop the nation's underdeveloped interior provinces.
Still, the situation of unemployment stands unyielding, driven by an increase in the ranks of university students and a mismatch between job seekers and job offers.
China's Internet community was abuzz when news broke that a Beijing University female graduate with a master's degree has recently given up looking for a college-level job, returned to her home in Henan Province and enrolled in a job-training school to learn the ropes of a construction painter.
Chinese experts say it is time for young college graduates to change their elitist mindset and learn job skills that are on demand in the job market.
That kind of advice, however, appears high-sounding in the ears of many young people in China.
As a 24-year-old man in Beijing put it bluntly, ''In China, you need connections to get a job.''
This apparently turns job-seeking among the unconnected into a dark reality.
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