Photo/VCG

Apr. 3 (NBD) – The white-collar life in a cubicle is losing its allure to a growing number of Chinese college students, who opt for more flexible occupations like fitness coaches, online game players, and live broadcasters.

Yang, a junior student majoring in French from the School of Foreign Languages and Literature of Fudan University, told 21st Century Business Herald that s/he noticed more and more people of his/her age are taking unconventional career paths. 

"For example, many classmates from the northeastern provinces are livestreaming to make extra money, and some plan to become writers for self-media accounts after graduation," said Yang.

Data shows that in 2018 the proportion of graduates from Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Communication University of China who chose flexible employment reached 28.6 percent, 14.7 percent and 47.5 percent, respectively.

The term flexible employment refers to part-time or temporary jobs, or positions with flexible working hours. Feng Lijuan, Chief HR Officer of recruitment platform 51job.com, observed a recent trend that the better the universities, the more graduates choose flexible employment. One of the signs is that on-campus job fairs held in top universities are attracting less applicants than before.

A large-scale job fair was co-held by seven universities in Shanghai in November 15 2018, and companies including those of Fortune Global 500 and China's top 500 offered over 50,000 positions, which greatly surpassed the number of graduates who attended.

Moreover, 21st Century Business Herald noticed that number of graduates choosing state-owned enterprises and foreign companies, which are conventionally considered ideal employers, is decreasing. More students opt for medium- and small-sized enterprises that suit their personal career development.

Employment report of college graduates of Shanghai shows that 88.6 percent of 2018 graduates chose the tertiary sector of the economy, and 26.9 percent of them were attracted to privately owned enterprises, up 3.8 percentage from the previous year.

The phenomenon is linked to the rising demand for talents in the emerging industries in the service sector, which to a large extent are operated by privately own enterprises.

Fitness coaching is one of the fast developing new vocations. A report shows in 2018 the fitness population in China reached 43.27 million, and the number of fitness gyms was 46,050. Fitness coaches belong to the high-income group among the flexible jobs, whose median income falls between 10,000 yuan (1488.2 U.S. dollars) to 15,000 yuan (2232.3 U.S. dollars).

Dr. Li Zheng, scholar of vocational education and adult education of East China Normal University, said the flexible employment trend came as a result of the phasing out of certain traditional jobs and the emergence of new jobs. 

It is also related to the change of consumption habits, said Li. Individualistic and custom-tailored services are increasingly characteristic of emerging industries, which in return changes career choices of college graduates.

Email: limenglin@nbd.com.cn