More than 100,000 job vacancies in different companies have been provided online to college students since Tuesday, which is part of the efforts of the Chinese government to help them with this year's job hunting.

The online job fair, first of its kind this year, was jointly organized by the Ministry of Education (MOE), the Ministry of Personnel, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, the State Development and Reform Commission, and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

The five government departments will hold at least 13 online job fairs, including construction, health, agricultural and commercial sectors, an official with the MOE said.

The MOE, and nine other government departments will offer other helps to job-hunting students, including free job-hunting consulting, skill training, internship program, and financial support for impoverished graduates.

They have also made policy to lead the students to work in undeveloped western regions of the country.

"This move is to meet the urgent demand for jobs amid surging numbers of college graduates," the official said.

China will also establish some pilot bases to encourage students to start their own business.

China has been under great pressure as the number of college graduates keeps surging. According to statistics, 5.59 million students will graduate from higher education institutions in 2008, an increase of 640,000 over this year. About 30 percent or 1.4 million college graduates failed to find a job on graduation in 2007.

Earlier this month, Chinese Vice Minister of Labor and Social Security Zhang Xiaojian said that the employment issue would become "more protruding" as more college graduates entering the job market each year.

Statistics show that a total of 11.84 million urban Chinese found jobs last year, the first time China saw the number of newly employed urban people exceed 10 million in one year.

(Xinhua News Agency November 21, 2007)