Chinese authorities are trying to encourage more students to pursue a technical education as they try to reduce labor shortages in the manufacturing sector and retain China's place as the world’s factory. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS) said that the country is aiming to enroll at least 1.4 million students at technical colleges in the coming academic year. “The colleges need to expand recruitment and come up with training programs for different groups of students, including full-time, part-time and occupational training,” the Ministry said. “They should focus on career development and set up majors closely aligned with socio-economic development. The country encourages technical colleges to widely partner with companies, and improve training programs to integrate education with work skills.”
As labor costs and automation rates rise, the world’s second-biggest economy is ambitious to transition to tech-driven intelligent manufacturing, shifting focus to the kind of higher value-added products that Beijing is counting on as future drivers of the economy. But a lack of systematic occupational training and willingness among young people to work in factories has led to a dearth of skilled manufacturing workers and engineers, compounding the pressure on manufacturers. In 2020, the manufacturing sector was nearly 20 million short of the number of technical workers it needed, and by 2025, nearly 30 million manufacturing jobs in the country will go unfilled, according to the Ministry. Around 44% of industrial companies last year said hiring difficulties were one of their top challenges, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
At the same time, the country is grappling with high levels of unemployment. Last month, the urban unemployment rate reached its highest level in two years, while joblessness among 16 to 24-year-olds was a record 18.2%. Those pressures are expected to be compounded this year when 10.76 million university graduates enter a bleak labor market. The one group defying the doom are vocational college graduates. In 2021, 97.2% of the country’s 1.09 million vocational graduates were employed, the Ministry said.
By the end of last year, the country had 2,492 technical colleges, 100 more than two years ago, and the number is expected to keep rising by 2025 in line with the country’s 14th Five Year Plan, the South China Morning Post reports.
