Another conversation in Beijing
Today Beijing is highly polluted with heavy congested traffic and smog. The campuses of Tsinghua Universities is much quiet than few days ago, and like university anywhere, there are many students in fashionable clothes talking on their iPhones or carrying their iPads. Apple must be doing a good job here as its products are everywhere.
As I point out this fact to a friend, he explains: “Things are changing fast here. These students are mostly sons and daughters of government workers or company owners. They represent the elite group of society with bright future. To get to this top school, you need connection as it is difficult to get in even you are good students. Wealthy people can pay teachers to tutor their children to get good scores in exam and use their connection to get them admit to top schools with modern facilities and good teachers.”
I ask: “How does the job market here, especially in Information technology?” He explains: “Competition for good technical workers is higher than ever because it is harder to find. Job opportunities in information technology (IT) are very good, especially in new areas such as cloud computing, the Internet of Things and big data. I think cloud computing services will be very big in China and it will create a lot of jobs in the next few years. The question is where do we find workers? How do we compete with the U.S. and Europe when many top students would leave for jobs in those countries? From what I know, there is a critical shortage of IT skilled workers here and it is getting worst as the education system is too slow to change, especially in the IT areas.”
He continues: “Intel has opened a Smart Device Innovation Center in Shenzhen to build tablets, smartphones, and IoT devices based on its chips. But it has difficulty to find qualified workers. Samsung Electronics invested billion dollars in its chip production and software testing center in Xi'an but also having difficulty hiring skilled software engineers. There is a critical shortage of IT skilled workers here but at the same time, there are several million unemployed college graduates, many of them study IT but they do not have the skills. They can recite theories and get degree but cannot do works. Today most foreign companies do not trust our college degrees anymore. They require all applicants to take qualification tests and most failed. Can you imagine many electronic engineering graduates failed a simple electronic test because it does not ask about theories or essay but actual electronic skills. It is so shameful but that is an issue of our education system, too much memorization, not much in practicality.”
He seems bitter: “Today ZTE, our own telecommunication manufacturer is hiring electronics and software engineers from BlackBerry, Nokia and Motorola to work on their smartphones. (Note: These companies are closing its telecommunication business and lay off workers in Canada and the U.S.) Huawei Technologies is recruiting workers in Malaysia and India for wireless network engineer, and product manager. Many Chinese companies are now hiring foreign skilled workers because they cannot find skilled workers here. Some have to open facilities in other countries in order to hire skilled workers there. It is a global issue now as every country needs technology workers but the education system cannot change fast enough. It continues to produce unskilled graduates in areas that have no future and let so many young people without jobs, without hope when there are so many opportunities are available.”
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
