Non-standard employment trends for mainstream college graduates

 In 2020, the number of graduates of ordinary colleges and universities reached 8.74 million, a record high. At the same time, under the influence of the global epidemic situation of new crown pneumonia and the change of international situation, the downward pressure of the economy is great, which makes it more difficult for college graduates to obtain employment. To solve the employment problem of college graduates, on the one hand, we need to strengthen our work, the Party and the government attach great importance to this," steady employment "and" guaranteed employment "has been listed as the first party and government work; on the other hand, college graduates need to understand the changing job market, change their mentality before new employment trends such as non-standard employment and informal employment, meet the challenges, and start their first job in their careers with a positive attitude.

Non-standard employment is the trend

At present, there is no strict consensus definition of what is non-standard employment (Non-standard employment), whether in academic or official. Generally speaking, non-standard employment refers to work outside the scope of the standard employment relationship. The standard employment relationship refers to full-time, indefinite, and part of the subordinate employment relationship. In some cases, researchers also define standard employment relationships as work performed outside the home. When this definition is adopted, more tasks are classified as non-standard employment, including e-office and other forms of telecommuting. In November 2016, the International Labour Organization released the World's Non-standard Employment: Understanding Challenges, Shaping the Future report (hereinafter referred to as the report), which divides non-standard employment into four types: temporary employment; part-time work; temporary agency work and other multi-employment relationships; covert employment and dependent self-employment. The statistics in the Report show that in the past few decades, both developed and developing countries have experienced a dramatic shift from standard to non-standard employment, and that non-standard employment is becoming universal throughout the world.

Non-standard employment of college graduates is on the rise

 Since China's reform and opening up, there have been many new changes in the employment mode in the labor market, and the proportion of flexible employment belonging to non-standard employment has increased significantly. In June 2004, for the first time, the Ministry of Education included flexible employment, including self-employment and free occupation, in the revised Statistical Approach to the Employment of Graduates. On June 29,2020, the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued the circular of the General Office of the Ministry of Education on strictly verifying the employment data of college graduates of the 2020 session, which further clarified the meaning of the relevant indicators of employment statistics for college graduates. Among them, the bright spot lies in "independent entrepreneurship" and "freelance ", the scope of independent entrepreneurship has joined the opening of online stores, the scope of freelance has joined the Internet marketing workers, public number bloggers, e-sports workers and so on.

 So, what is the non-standard employment situation of college graduates in China? Since 2003, the Institute of Education Economics of Peking University School of Education has conducted a national survey on the employment situation of college graduates every other year. So far, nine times have been carried out. Through the statistical analysis of the survey data, we find that the non-standard employment of college graduates presents the following characteristics:

 First, the proportion of non-standard employment is significant. In the direction of college graduates, There are four cases of employment, Where "identified units" can be classified as standard employment, "Self-employment "," freelance" and "other flexible employment" can be classified as non-standard employment. The proportion of non-standard employment shows an overall upward trend, The average of the nine surveys was 23.5 percent, The average of the last seven surveys was 27.9 percent, The average of the last five surveys was 29.1 percent, The average of the last three surveys was 33.9. Visible, Non-standard employment has become an integral part of college graduates' employment.

  Second, the proportion of active choice of non-standard employment is large. The National Survey of College Graduates Employment (2019) released by Peking University shows that graduates choose non-standard employment more actively. 62.5 percent of graduates considered non-standard employment "free time" and 55.9 percent considered "flexible working methods ". The reasons for graduates' passive choice of non-standard employment are "the wages of the work unit are too low "(20.0%)," not interested in the work of the unit "(18.5%)," not employed by the desired unit "(14.1%)," the development prospect of the work unit is not good enough "(11.8%).

 Third, there are significant educational differences in non-standard employment. In the 2019 Survey, non-standard employment (self-employment, freelance and other flexible employment) accounted for 21.9 percent,11.7 percent,7.2 percent and 6.6 percent of graduates, respectively. The higher the level of education, the lower the proportion of non-standard employment; among graduates,31.5 percent,28.2 percent,11.2 percent and 11.1 percent of graduates chose non-standard employment.

 As far as the current employment situation is concerned, there is still a big gap between the overall education level of our labor force and the developed countries, and the educational structure of the labor force is slightly weak in supporting the upgrading of the industrial structure. It is suggested that the following aspects should be studied: first, for college graduates, the problem of educational mismatch in student employment can be explained from the perspective of the urban structure of student employment; second, the matching of graduates' professional structure and labor market occupational structure needs to be discussed in more detail