China is preparing for an unprecedented wave of new university graduates next summer – a record 12.7 million outgoing students – intensifying pressure on an already strained job market and a slowing economy.
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The 2026 cohort will be about 4 per cent larger than the 12.22 million graduates in 2025 – an additional 480,000 young people competing for jobs, according to the Ministry of Education. It announced the figures on Thursday, as it launched new campaigns to ensure sufficient opportunities.
The number of graduates has increased over the past decade and is expected to keep rising over the next 10 years, fuelling persistently high youth unemployment and raising concerns about social stability.
“We must draw lessons from past experience… and place greater emphasis on adopting extraordinary, unconventional policy measures to address unpredictable risks,” according to an official readout from a national conference on the issue, also held on Thursday.
Despite the “pressure and difficulties” facing the class of 2025, overall employment has remained stable, the report’s authors said.
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The jobless rate for those aged 16 to 24, excluding students, eased slightly to over 17 per cent in September and October after hitting a 20-month high of 18.9 per cent in August, as graduates flooded the job market over the summer, official data showed.
At Thursday’s conference, senior officials from the education and other ministries instructed local governments and universities to launch new initiatives to “expand and improve the quality of graduate employment” for the outgoing cohort.