After fleeing China’s cutthroat graduate job market, Luo Ying hoped pursuing a master’s degree at a university in Cardiff would help her secure a brighter future.

But months after finishing her history course, she is finding that starting a career in the United Kingdom can be equally gruelling.

“I started applying for jobs right after graduation and have sent out over 600 applications – Chinese teacher, receptionist, or even waitressing. I haven’t heard back from anyone,” said Luo, who is now considering temporary work just to make ends meet.

The pressure has been so overwhelming that Luo has seriously considered returning home for good. But she knows that the competition in China remains relentless – and she is reluctant to admit her time in the UK has been a failure.

“I’ve spent over 500,000 yuan (US$69,000) studying here,” she said. “Leaving with nothing would be devastating.”

Many Chinese graduates in the UK are facing the same dilemma. Studying at British universities has become a popular choice among young people trying to escape China’s youth unemployment crisis over the past few years.

The UK is the second most popular destination for China’s international students after the United States, with just over 150,000 Chinese nationals enrolled at British universities as of 2022, the most recent year for which data is available.

The jobless rate for young people in Britain remained stubbornly high at 14.6 per cent between December and February, and the economic outlook looks bleak as the British government slashes its growth forecasts amid an intensifying global trade war.

Chinese graduates often find it particularly hard to secure a position in this harsh new labour market, as Elen Li discovered after completing a master’s in education at a university in Birmingham last September.

“I started applying for jobs in February, right after getting my graduate working visa,” she said. “I’ve sent out about 50 applications. Only one local education centre offered me a part-time role. No one else even responded.”

Li said her biggest hurdle is her inability to speak fluent English. “I’ve never struggled like this in China,” she said. “I can’t even compete with my Indian or Nigerian classmates.”

She now works part-time at a Chinese supermarket, with her £260 (US$345) monthly salary just about covering her basic expenses. Yet, despite these setbacks, Li has no intention of returning to China.

“Many of my classmates have already gone back to China, but their salaries are low and the pressure is overwhelming,” she said. “You can see the anxiety through their social media.”

Luo echoes this view. In December, she briefly returned to China to attend a few job fairs, but the experience reminded her that the competition there remains as intense as ever.

“I even asked my aunt to help me find an admin job in our local library – 20,000 applicants had already applied,” Luo recalled. “The person who got it was a well-connected graduate from a top US school. You can’t even call it unfair – she was excellent, too.”

On paper, China’s youth unemployment rate is only slightly higher than the UK’s, with the metric falling to 16.5 per cent in March. But that is partly because China revised its statistical methods in 2023 to exclude currently enrolled students from its figures: before it changed the formula, the rate was above 21 per cent.

But time is running out for both Li and Luo if they wish to remain in the UK. Britain offers foreign students a two-year post-study work (PSW) visa after graduating, which gives them some time to find a job that qualifies them for a long-term work permit.

Chinese graduates make up the third-largest group holding PSW visas in the UK, accounting for 10 per cent of all approvals, behind only students from India and Nigeria, according to British government figures.

But the number of people that transition from a PSW visa onto a work permit is relatively low, and the challenge deepened in April 2024 when the UK raised the skilled worker visa salary threshold from £26,200 to £38,700.

The new rules effectively exclude foreign nationals looking for graduate roles in a whole host of professions, especially those traditionally favoured by arts and humanities students.

“If I’d graduated a few years later, I would’ve been unemployed too,” said Lin, who graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 2020 and now works for a consulting firm in London.

“Last summer, juniors were already starting to add me on LinkedIn and asking to meet over coffee to talk over job hunting, which never used to happen,” recalled Lin, who gave only her surname for privacy reasons. “I only applied for 20 jobs and had an offer within two months of graduation … It’s much tougher now.”

The difficulties are not confined to Chinese students. Vega, a Spanish student about to finish a master’s in international political economy at a top London university, has found the UK job market equally disheartening.

At a recent job fair organised by his university, Vega tried to hand over his résumé to a recruiting manager. But the manager quietly rebuffed him, explaining that the firm did not currently have any roles available. “But we have to give the impression that we’re growing and active in the market,” they added.

Vega, who also declined to give his full name for privacy reasons, said he was now weighing a move to another European capital. “At least there, I won’t be tied up in visa red tape,” he said. “And the cost-of-living pressure doesn’t feel quite as suffocating as it does in London.” (South China Morning Post)