Shanghai government has rolled out a series of measures to improve the city's employment of college graduates on account of the intensive competition this year.

Some 227,000 students in Shanghai will graduate from colleges and universities this year, according to the local government. The city sees 20,000 more college graduates compared to 2021 and the biggest annual increase in the last five years.

The job market seems to be much more competitive. In a news conference held in early May, Shanghai Vice Mayor Chen Qun said that employment rate for this year's graduates was 36.47 percent as of May 6, down by 6.54 percent year on year.

Wu Xiao is a postgraduate at East China Normal University. Like many others, his biggest challenge is finding a job.

"I have applied for more than 20 jobs," Wu said, adding that he started looking for job opportunities over a year ago.

However, Wu was lucky enough to have finally found a rather satisfying job. Many of his classmates, he said, haven't.

The recent COVID-19 outbreak in Shanghai is one of the causes.

"Since the beginning of March, all Shanghai colleges have suspended offline job fairs," Liu Jiliang, director of the Vocational Development Center at East China Normal University, said.

"This has had a huge impact on our students, because this is usually the peak of spring recruitment season."

Many students would settle their jobs during March and April. In China, there is the saying "Gold in March and Silver in April" to describe the peak season for college recruitment.

Many of the job fairs are forced to turn to online, which might be more convenient, but it takes much more time to negotiate with the employers.

Thus, students need more time to buffer since they will usually leave campus in June. Shanghai officials in May have asked colleges to extend graduates' student status.

Meanwhile, an action plan to promote employment and entrepreneurship of college graduates, which was published on May 22, has required Shanghai's state-owned enterprises to dedicate at least 50 percent of their hiring quotas to college graduates. 

"This is something we've never had before," said Shen Kaiyan, director of the Institute of Economics, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. "With binding indicators, it is easier to practice, easier to assess and easier to achieve the purpose."

For each college graduate hired, enterprises will be given 7,800 yuan ($1,171) in tax cuts and 2,000 yuan of subsidies.

Shen said that the subsidy and tax cut will also partially relieve companies' employment pressure and encourage them to hire more.

The action plan also encourages college graduates to start their own businesses. For those who are self-employed, they will be given a tax cut of 14,400 yuan ($2,162) for three years.