1/3 graduates fail to find jobs by end of Sept.

Almost 30 percent of this year's university graduates had failed to find a job by the end of September, the Ministry of Education said Wednesday. Five million students graduated this year, but nearly 1.5 million of them are still unemployed.

The number of unemployed graduates has been increasing year by year, according to ministry statistics. In 2001, there were 340,000, last year there were 1.24 million.

For those who have found a job, 40 percent work for private or foreign-funded companies, while 0.4 percent had set up their own companies. Many university leavers have chosen to work at grassroots level because of government policies such as waiving the debts of graduates willing to work in the country's rural and western regions.

But exports say university graduates need not be too pessimistic over the job situation as more opportunities will be created in the future. Self-employment and the new focus on vocational education should help them find jobs.