Chapter 13 Lecture 12 Why College Students Can't Find a Job

●Why can American college students find jobs if they don't have the right majors, but why can't Chinese college students find jobs if they don't have the right majors? ●If you don't come to listen to my lectures, you will never know why you can't find a job all your life. ●You can't find a job because of the wrong positioning of the national industrial chain, and this phenomenon will continue to deteriorate as the number of our college graduates increases. Beginning in 1999, my country's colleges and universities began to implement the enrollment expansion policy. In 2000, there were 5.56 million undergraduates in my country. In 2005, the number reached 15.62 million, and 10.06 million college students were recruited in five years.According to the outline of the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" for the development of national education, by 2010, there will be 20 million general undergraduate and junior college students, and an additional 4.38 million students will be enrolled.At the same time, it is increasingly difficult for college students to find a job.In recent years, graduate job fairs all over the country have shown a scene of "explosiveness".In some extreme cases, we have seen that college students sell "cabbage prices", and students from prestigious schools have to raise pigs, sell meat, chat with them, and beg... So why can't college students find jobs?

All the guests today are college students!This time, let's talk about the topic of job hunting for college students in the Mainland. The employment rate of graduates of each major in 2007 is as follows: the employment rate of business administration majors is 58%; engineering management majors are more than 50%; agricultural majors are the best, reaching 78%; law, education, media and medicine are all around 30% .If this ratio continues, at least half of the people here will be unemployed.If you can't find a job, you can't get married, and you can't have children.There is also some news. According to the information we have collected, many employers recruit undergraduates as foot cleaners, and the salary is 800 to 1,200 yuan.

From this we can see that the employment situation of college students is grim.Let me give you another piece of information. In 1998, the number of college graduates in the mainland was 1.08 million. Four years later, the number rose to 5.59 million, but most of them could not find a job.Why can't I find a job?Is your level not enough?no.I see you are all smarter than me.I have noticed the reports of our media and the discussions of many experts and scholars in the Mainland. I can tell you clearly that their analysis is wrong. One of the most widely circulated reasons is that the majors of college students are not suitable. I don't think this is a good reason.I have taught in many schools in the United States, such as the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan, as well as schools in Hong Kong and the Mainland.But I have never seen a university graduate who is a professional counterpart.So professional misalignment seems to be a normal phenomenon.

Why can American college students find jobs if they don’t have the right majors, but we Chinese college students can’t find jobs if they don’t have the right majors?This is not reasonable.The employment rate of American university graduates is extremely high, and many countries have higher employment rates than the United States. I just mentioned that in 1998 the number of college graduates in the mainland was 1.08 million, and in 2008 it was 5.59 million.I also mentioned to you a bathing center recruiting college students. On December 18, 2005, college students in Chengdu became straw shoemakers.I am 53 years old, and my wife is almost 50 years old. We expect our daughter to help me after graduation, but it doesn't seem right now, she can't even support herself.So what will happen to our old couple's life in the future?

This phenomenon is very serious.Let me tell you again, the situation is more than that.What will your parents do after you graduate from college?What should you do if your parents get sick after you have just worked for a few years?What if your parents retire and get sick again?The cost of medicine in China is beyond your imagination.Although I'm doing well, I'm worried now, what if my parents get chronic diseases? Why do we have no confidence?Because our medical system has a problem.So when you analyze these issues comprehensively, you will find that unemployment of college students is not a simple issue—it is related to both yourself and your parents.Of course, we have to understand that the proportion of college students in Hong Kong is very high, reaching 80% to 90%, the United States is 60% to 70%, and the same is true in Europe and Japan.But why their college students can find jobs, but ours can't?We must know that the proportion of our Chinese college students is very low!

Why did our universities merge and expand their enrollment?Let's take a look at this data on the proportion of college students in China. China has a population of more than 1 billion, but there are only 1.08 million college students, which is an extremely low proportion.If China wants to rank among the top developed countries in the world, the proportion of college students must be very high, at least as high as that of the United States.Because the more college students there are, the more productive we are.In order to improve the quality of college students, our colleges and universities merged and expanded their enrollment after 1998, and trained so many college students, but the final result was unemployment.What is the reason?

Let me talk about this issue from another angle. From January to February 2008, the state released some data. What is going on with these data?In the Shenzhen area, a large number of enterprises closed down.What kind of companies are closing down?manufacturing.How many of you think China is a big manufacturing country?Since you are here as guests, I will reverse all your wrong ideas today.If you still think that China is a big manufacturing country, I will tell you that you are very wrong.China is not a big manufacturing country as reported in the media at all. Who is the real big manufacturing country?United States.

Do you think that the manufacturing industry produces clothes, sneakers and tea cups?Is this manufacturing?no!The real manufacturing industry is an industrial chain.Which links are included?Let me tell you that the manufacturing industry has a total of 7 links, including manufacturing, product design, raw material procurement, warehousing and transportation, order processing, wholesale operation and retail. Today I call the 7 links of the manufacturing industry the "6 plus 1" formula.What does that mean?Manufacturing is a separate part, which is "1".The remaining six links of product design, raw material procurement, warehousing and transportation, order processing, wholesale operation and retailing are "6".Let's call it "6 plus 1" like CCTV's program.

"1" is the hard production link, and "6" is the soft production link.So, do you know what is the international division of labor?What does the international division of labor led by the United States mean?It is to put the worst "1" in "6 plus 1" in China.What are the characteristics of this "1"?Let me tell you, it has three major features: first, it wastes resources; second, it damages the environment; third, it exploits labor.Obviously, the United States will definitely not place the manufacturing industry with these three characteristics in its own country, but in China.What did America leave behind?The "6" is kept, and this "6" is the six links mentioned before, from product design to retail.Students think about it, is this division of labor in the industrial chain extremely detrimental to us?Our China is a big factory. The whole world has moved all types of factories (including polluting, non-polluting, high-tech, and non-technical...) to China.It looks like we are industrializing, but actually we are working for Americans.Do you know why?Let me take the toy industry, which students were most concerned about last year, as an example.

Last year, my country's toy industry encountered a lot of trouble in the United States. The US government said that the lead content in this toy was too high, and there were various problems.Dear students, think about it, how can our lead content be high?It was the Americans who asked us to put so much lead, so we did it.We sell you toys, and you criticize our products for having too much lead. Isn’t this designed according to your American standards? The United States oppresses our toy industry so much, let's see how much value our toy industry has created.There were quite a few female students present, so let's talk about the Barbie dolls that girls like very much.The retail price of a Barbie doll in a Wal-Mart store in the United States is equivalent to 10 US dollars, but what is the ex-factory price of a Chinese factory? 1 dollar.Then from the "6 plus 1" model, "1" creates 1 dollar, and "6" creates the rest of the value.

The value created by "6" neither pollutes the environment nor exploits labor, but it needs college students the most.understand? "1" does not require college students.What really needs college students is the "6" in the "6 plus 1" model, not the "1".It turned out that before the expansion of college enrollment, we did not understand that we do not need so many college students, because our manufacturing industry is in the link with the lowest value in the industrial chain.If you don't come to listen to my lectures, you will never know why you can't find a job for the rest of your life.You may even blame yourself: Did you not study hard at school, did you fall in love every day at school, so you made your grades worse?If I had known earlier, I would not have fallen in love and studied hard.In fact, this is the result of the wrong positioning of our industrial chain. The real beneficiary of this form of industrial chain is the United States, not China.Let me again use the Barbie doll as an example.We waste resources, destroy the environment, exploit labor, and finally create a value of 100 yuan, but at the same time create a value of 900 yuan for the United States. Therefore, the more we produce, the richer who will be?America gets richer.What we do makes it easier for American college students to find jobs and make more money.Instead of earning 1,000 RMB a month, they make thousands of dollars.In other words, China's manufacturing industry exploits labor, wastes resources, and damages the environment, but it makes more people in the United States work and earn more money. This is our so-called international division of labor, do you all understand?After understanding this example, you will understand very well why the United States wants to move all manufacturing out.Why?The cost is high and there is no competitiveness, so they moved to China.If you think that China is competitive, let me tell you, you are wrong, you don't understand what's going on at all.Let me introduce a new point of view to you. Today's world has entered the era of industrial chain competition, not the era of industry competition.This is a brand new point of view, invented by me, Professor Lang Xianping. The word "industrial chain" was also invented by me, and it is the conclusion I found through a lot of research.Under this industrial chain structure, unless we go from "1" to "6", it will be very difficult for college students to find jobs.How to go?Haier, which we are familiar with, once experienced that it wanted to acquire Mattel in the United States.I can tell you that this is impossible to succeed, because Mattel is "6", and it is one of the companies in the "6" link, and it is impossible to cooperate with Haier.What can we produce?Clothes, this is the position that Americans give us.If we want to enter "6", they will block us, it's as simple as that, we can't enter at all.And this is the real reason for the recent decline in my country's manufacturing industry.The wrong positioning of the international industrial chain has made the development of my country's manufacturing industry very difficult. In 2006, its average net profit margin was less than 5%, and in 2007 it was less than 2%. When college students couldn't find a job in 2008, their average net profit margin was almost zero.This is the result of the international division of labor led by the United States. Furthermore, our interest rates are still rising, and the exchange rate is also rising, which makes the life of the export manufacturing industry unsustainable.How to go?How to enter the soft link?Today I want to tell the competent authority that our industrial policy must go from "1" to "6". This is my suggestion.And let me tell you again, how difficult it is to go from "1" to "6". The term "industrial upgrading" refers to the introduction of technology under the existing scale of enterprises.Why are you still working hard on "1"?I beg you not to be cynical anymore. Finally, let's talk about the reasons.We trade the market for technology, but the market is lost and the technology is not exchanged. This is our destiny.As long as the development stage stays at "1", we have been creating a lot of wealth for other countries, which is a fact.A Haier phenomenon has emerged recently, and I believe it deserves the attention of our audience and guests.What is the Haier phenomenon?That is, Haier invested a considerable part of its funds (about 15 billion yuan) in the real estate industry.I am not going to comment on whether Haier's entry into the real estate industry is good or bad. This is not the topic to be discussed today, but why did Haier leave his manufacturing industry and enter the real estate industry?This is because the investment and business environment has deteriorated sharply, and there is really no other way to do this.Therefore, Haier's real estate development strategy is the result of the wrong positioning of the national industrial chain.You can't find a job because of the wrong positioning of the national industrial chain, and this phenomenon will continue to worsen as the number of our college graduates increases. Of course, in the end, you must be curious, why do college students all over the world have different majors when they get a job?What does that mean?That is, undergraduate education around the world is to cultivate generalists, not specialists.Specialization is to cultivate professionals.Since it is to cultivate generalists, of course it is not suitable for majors, this is for sure.So you originally studied undergraduates with the wrong majors. Wouldn’t it be ridiculous if you took this as a reason for not being able to get a job?Also, if undergraduates are all going to study junior colleges, why do we need undergraduates? The whole country only has junior colleges.We must clearly distinguish the characteristics of undergraduate and junior college.Thank you all. Audience: Hello, Professor Lang.As a college student, my concern is of course employment.As you just said, the root cause of the employment difficulties of Chinese college students is that we are at the low end of the international division of labor industrial chain.As college students, how can we get rid of this disadvantage through our own efforts in the current environment, so that our abilities can be brought into full play and our future will be brighter?Please point us to a feasible way, thank you. Lang Xianping: I can tell you that no matter how hard you try, it is useless.This is true, because it is the inevitable result of the low-end of my country's industrial chain.It has such a characteristic, it does not need college students, it needs workers.What unit do you really need?Banks, securities companies, design companies and advertising companies.The problem is that our service industry is underdeveloped, which cannot be changed.There are 5.59 million graduates in our country this year, and only 2 to 3 million people are actually employed.If I tell you that you must have better luck and study harder, I believe you can understand, these are some official words.But how should you try?You want to be different from others, that is, to form a differentiated advantage. In what aspects are you different?what's your major? Audience: Tourism Management. Lang Xianping: If you want an employer to hire you, you must have special skills, for example, you must speak a foreign language better.In today's state of underemployment, you have to compete with your friends.Compete with your classmates too.At this time, you have to pay attention, you have to form a differentiated advantage, you have to be different from others, so that you can get a job before them.But the overall environment cannot be changed. Even if our students across the country work so hard, half of them cannot find a job. Audience: Hello, Professor Lang, as our reports say, our manufacturing industry has encountered some small difficulties. Some experts say that this is just a good opportunity for us to change the industrial structure to create a more core competitive industry.What do you think of it?thanks. Lang Xianping: It's a very good question.Let’s tell a fairy tale. When our manufacturing industry went bankrupt and encountered difficulties, a beautiful princess and a handsome prince appeared. They designed a very complete plan, and then our industry was upgraded, from " 1" has become "6", we can not only design products, but also learn how to store and transport.If it really develops to this point, there will be no problem for college students to find jobs. But now I ask you, what if we don't get this far?Do you know how big the gap is from "1" to "6"?To achieve this step of development requires the joint efforts of the government and enterprises.It is very difficult to achieve this goal, relying on the individual behavior of an enterprise cannot succeed, it needs the support of a country's strategic plan.We didn't pay much attention to the problem of "1 plus 6" in the past, what are we doing?We are all working hard to improve "1", such as reducing costs and improving technology.It is not unimportant to increase "1", but we regard "6" as too simple. For example, Li Dongsheng of TCL, he said that he wants to use China's cheap labor force to cooperate with foreign brand technology to go out, and the same is true for BenQ.So what do I think when they say that?I said at the time that it was impossible.Some people say that Professor Lang's speech is very absolute. Why is it absolute?Because I have confidence, this is what I researched. They won't listen to me. TCL acquired France's Thomson, and BenQ acquired Siemens' mobile business, but they all collapsed after a year or two.Do you know why they fail?Taking advantage of China's cheap labor, can we go out?If you think so, you are completely wrong.You are still working hard on "1" and have not developed to "6". What does "1" consist of? That is, in the entire industrial chain "6 plus 1", the labor cost is 0.25 dollars in 1 dollar, which accounts for 25%.How small do you think it is?How can you not fail if you compete with the entire industry chain with such a small capital?The real reason for his failure is that he did not understand that the world today has entered the era of industrial chain competition. Therefore, Chinese companies that want to take advantage of cheap labor to go out are doomed to fail. Can you enter "6"?Of course you can, but before you can enter "6", you must know where "6" is, and you must know where to go.Today, many of our companies are working hard on labor costs, and on the technology and brand of "1".I'm not saying it's not good to do so, but it's silly for you to put so many resources on "1" to make a fuss.You should put national resources on improving "6", so that you can solve the error in the positioning of the industrial chain, and you can explain the employment of our college students by the way.But let me tell you, even if we complete the integration of the industrial chain, you will not have time to get a job, because this cannot be done overnight, it will take several years. Audience: Professor Lang, hello.You compared us with the employment situation of college students in the United States. I think we should not compare with developed countries such as the United States or the United Kingdom, but with developing countries.What measures do you think other developing countries have for the employment of their college students?For example, India, because India is also a populous country.How do they solve the employment problem of college students? Lang Xianping: Let me just talk about one of our regions - Hong Kong, how about it?The proportion of college students in Hong Kong is higher than that of the United States, but our employment situation in Hong Kong is very good.Take our Chinese University of Hong Kong as an example, the employment rate of students who graduated from the business school is 100%, so how high is the salary? In 2007, from a minimum of 9,000 yuan to a maximum of 40,000 yuan.Some students go to Goldman Sachs to invest 40,000 to 50,000 yuan a month, and the lowest monthly income is 9,000 to 12,000 yuan. The employment rate is no problem.The employment rate of graduates of business schools is guaranteed, but it cannot be guaranteed for graduates of science and engineering.Because Hong Kong's economy is completely dominated by the service industry, under this soft link system, employers have little demand for science and engineering graduates, making it difficult for them to find jobs. This is why when students apply for Hong Kong schools, top students go to business schools and law schools.If we talk about other countries, let’s talk about the Philippines.The situation in the Philippines is not as good as in China. It doesn’t even have a “1”, and college students basically can’t find a job. What should we do?To be a nanny, like the nanny in our family, is a graduate of the National University of the Philippines with a bachelor's degree in education.He couldn't find a job, so he worked as a nanny in our family for more than ten or twenty years, and he was almost 40 years old.Today we look at the employment rate of college students in this country. We don't need to look at the statistics, just look at how the "6" and "1" match.If there is only "1" but no "6", the employment of college students is not good, understand what I mean? The stronger the "6", the easier it is for college students to find employment. Audience: Just now we talked about the employment difficulties of undergraduates. In fact, we also noticed that doctoral and graduate students also have similar problems.For example, many doctoral students in Beijing even choose to teach in middle schools in order to stay in Beijing. What do you think of this phenomenon? Lang Xianping: The phenomenon you mentioned is currently happening, and there is no way around it. It's a vicious cycle.What is a vicious circle?That is, college students can't find a job to take the postgraduate entrance examination, graduate students can't find a job to take the doctoral examination, and doctoral students can't find a job to go to the postgraduate entrance examination again.There are only a few jobs. Doctors crowd out masters, and masters crowd out bachelors. No matter what degree you study, you are still looking for a job in this narrow job market, and you can't escape the curse.For example, in the past teaching elementary and junior high schools, undergraduates were able to do the job, but now due to differentiation, PhDs are teaching high schools, junior high schools, and elementary schools.This is a waste of human resources. How much does it cost us to train a Ph.D.?And they were both 30 years old when they graduated.I tell my children, please, don’t study for a Ph.D.Many students discussed with me, how do you encourage children not to study?I will answer you now, I am not against my children going to graduate school, but to see if they are suitable for studying. My son is stupid, like his mother, so I suggested that he should not go to graduate school and go out to work as a worker, as a company employee or something.If he is reading this material, he will have time to read it later.But where are we now?Due to employment difficulties, a large number of graduates flock to the Institute.Their youth is wasted like this. When they graduate, they are already in their 30s. What else can they do? Audience: Hello, Professor Lang, I would like to ask a question. Now that it is so difficult for college students to find employment, what role should the government play?Which countries or regions are worth learning from in China? Lang Xianping: This is a very good question.The root cause of college students' employment difficulties is the wrong positioning of the industrial chain. Today, our government has organized many training courses, but this is useless, and it is not a cure for the symptoms, because there are not so many companies that need college students.We've wasted a lot of government money -- taxes -- doing things that don't help increase employment, and these measures don't solve the underlying problems.No matter how many books you study, it is determined by the characteristics of China's current manufacturing industry.So the meaning of today's program is to appeal to the government to use the limited funds in the country to transform the entire industrial chain. Instead of working on "1", we should work on "6". Then we will naturally be able to solve the problem. this problem. I have done research for so many years, and to be honest, I have rarely seen a country like China, where there is no complete industrial structure, and colleges and universities dare to expand enrollment and merge.The original education reform government was too hasty.