Job seekers at a job fair in Changchun, Northeast China's Jilin Province on March 12 Photo: IC

Zhang Jing, 22, checks her email inbox every minute, waiting anxiously for a job offer. 

Now a senior majoring in advertising at Xiamen University in East China's Fujian Province, one of the top universities in China, Zhang has submitted resumes to roughly 30 internet and video game companies. Five have allowed her to move to the next step in the employment process and three have rejected her application. 

"I feel job hunting among graduates will be bloody this year," Zhang told the Global Times. Taking that into consideration, she lowered her monthly salary expectation by 1,000 yuan ($141) to 5,000 yuan so that she can live in a city like Xiamen, where the average salary hit 8,700 yuan last year. 

Zhang is eyeing video game companies, saying they are popular among graduates as the industry has not been as impacted by the coronavirus outbreak as many others - people continue to play video games while quarantined at home. 

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, video game, livestreaming and online education sectors have soared as emerging industries with more job opportunities. Employment demand in the live streaming sector in February surged 1.3 times year-on-year, media reports revealed. 

Thriving sectors

According to a survey from Chinese job hunting platform Zhilian Zhaopin, construction, IT services, and e-commerce rank top among the industries favored by job hunters. 

For instance, the IT services industry which includes system and data maintenance soared to second place. Despite available positions in the industry decreasing 4.79 percent in just one week, resume submissions increased by 14 percent. 

Real estate and construction topped the list in China. Experts noted this could be related to the latest series of infrastructure investment projects worth nearly $5 trillion issued by local governments in China. 

Unlike traditional infrastructure like bridges and railways, recent investment projects focus on key areas such as public heath, essential supplies, the 5G network and digital centers - "new infrastructure." 

"With our government introducing several favorable policies on new infrastructure, 5G and artificial intelligence, those industries will be promising. More importantly, many SMEs are in these industries and they will be star enterprises or even unicorn companies in the future," Li Qiang, executive vice president of Zhilian Zhaopin, told the Global Times, adding that driverless technology and fintech will also bring great career opportunities for graduates.

According to a report from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), 5G technology will create more than 3 million jobs in China from 2020-25. 

For the 8.74 million new Chinese graduates, the coronavirus outbreak will likely intensify an already competitive job market, bringing some to anxiously submit hundreds of resumes online and others to lower their wage expectations, but some graduates have adjusted their options according to the country's emerging industries. 

Sue is studying for her master's degree at the University of Birmingham and will graduate this September. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, she decided to look for a job in China instead of finding one in the UK. 

Sue majors in hotel management, which has been one of the sectors hit hardest by the virus outbreak. 

As a result, Sue shifted her career choices to other industries, and the internet industry is top of her dream jobs list. 

According to CAICT, China's industrial internet sector will create 2.55 million new jobs this year. 

China's internet giants have grown bigger and bigger, from Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and JD.com, to the recently thriving TikTok and Pinduoduo. All are popular among graduates. 

Intense competition

In order to stabilize the domestic job market and facilitate graduate recruitment, China's Ministry of Education, together with relevant departments, is organizing 30 online recruitment activities for graduates nationwide. 

"Online recruitment is just single selection… Most applications end without a response," Zhang told the Global Times. She said she had received less feedback from online recruitment activities than from companies recruiting offline. That was in stark contrast to her experience finding an internship last summer. 

"When you personally meet a company's human resources, they will at least give you an assessment of your resume and tell you when you can expect an answer." 

China plans to expand enrollment in master's programs, allowing 189,000 more students to undertake postgraduate programs compared with 2019. China will also increase recruitment quotas for primary care health services, enrollment in the army and social services positions, Weng Tiehui, vice minister of education, told a press conference on February 28. 

The number of students that decide to take the postgraduate entrance exam for 2021 will "explode," an employee from a training institution in Beijing which offers exam preparation courses, told the Global Times. She asked to remain anonymous.

The number of students taking the postgraduate entrance exam has increased in recent years, and will inevitably surge next year due to this year's intense job market, she said.

Many provinces and cities have rolled out subsidies to boost domestic employment.

Take East China's Anhui Province as an example. It announced small and micro firms that sign employment contracts with college graduates for six months will receive a subsidy of 3,000 yuan per person, according to a statement on a local government website on Saturday.

China's state-owned enterprises have also been asked to increase their recruitment of graduates for two years. 

As stabilizing the job market has become a priority for China's central government this year, experts noted relevant governmental subsidies may surge to a historic high of 500-600 billion yuan in 2020.