Grads still hopeful about job hunting despite depression

Xuan, a 24-year-old final-year student majoring in automation, is one of an estimated 7.5 million graduates China's universities will churn out this year.

24岁的小萱是一名自动化专业毕业生，会在今年与全国750万毕业生一道走出大学校园。

But having grown up through an unprecedented era of economic growth and unbridled optimism, his cohort's ambitions are being confronted with a different reality: a Chinese economy growing at its slowest rate in their entire lives.

这些年轻人成长于中国经济空前增长、乐观情绪空前高涨的时代。此时此刻，他们的远大抱负却遭遇截然不同的现实：中国经济增速降至他们有生以来的最低点。

"I'm not too worried, and neither are my friends," says the tall and bespectacled Xuan, who hopes to find work managing production lines in the state-owned sector. "It just means we have to prepare better and look for work earlier; it's a matter of how far the job you land is from your dream job."

小萱希望在国有企业找到一份管理生产线的工作。“我不是特别担心，朋友们也不是很担心。只是说我们必须准备更充分，提前开始找工作。关键在于你找到的工作跟你梦想的职业差了多远。”

But China now produces seven times more university graduates than it did in 2000. The unemployment rate for Chinese youth with a university degree is higher than those without. And while far from reaching the dire levels seen in countries like Spain and Ireland, competition for good jobs is intensifying, even as China's top economic planning agency said on Tuesday it created 13 million new jobs last year – exceeding its target of 10 million.

中国现在的大学毕业生人数达到2000年的七倍。拥有大学学历的中国年轻人失业率高于没读过大学的同龄人。尽管青年失业率远未达到西班牙、爱尔兰等国的可怕程度，但如果想找到好工作，就要面对越来越激烈的竞争——即使中国最高经济规划部门已在12日表示国内去年新增就业岗位1300万个，超过了原定的1000万目标。

Long-term watchers of China's economy insist that while fundamentally troubled, China's problems are chronic rather than acute and the likelihood of collapse is remote – especially when social stability and employment are at the forefront of the Communist Party's compact with its people. 

有长期研究中国经济的观察家认为，虽然中国的问题从根本上讲令人担忧，但仍然属于“慢性病”而非“急性病”。发生崩溃的可能性微乎其微——尤其考虑到中共把社会稳定和就业看成是民生问题的重中之重。

While trade and manufacturing figures have been disappointing for months, trade data released on Thursday were far strong than expected, boosting sentiment and helping ease concerns China's financial market turmoil could spill into the real economy.

虽然近几个月来的贸易和制造业数据令人失望，但刚刚发布的贸易数据远远好于预期，增强了市场信心，有助于化解对于中国金融市场动荡会波及实体经济的担心。

Andrew Polk, a Beijing-based senior economist at the Conference Board, says the rest of the world was waking to the "China reality" that it is "growing more slowly than what the headline numbers say and that the challenges are more entrenched than many people thought".

美国“世界大型企业研究会”驻北京高级经济师安德鲁•波尔克认为，世界其他国家正逐渐认识到“中国的现实”，发现中国的“发展速度要低于媒体头条刊登的数据，（中国面临的）挑战比许多人以为的更加根深蒂固”。

And while volatility on Chinese equity markets may dominate attention, economists keep returning to China's credit bubble as the most insidious risk.

尽管动荡的中国股市最容易吸引眼球，但经济学家们还是认为信贷泡沫是中国面临的最隐蔽的风险。

An obsession over the quantum rather than quality of economic growth – especially during the stimulus-fuelled global financial crisis years – has seen China saddled with overbuilt infrastructure and real estate developments.

过于看重经济增长的规模而非质量（尤其是在用刺激措施抵御全球金融危机的岁月里）导致中国国内过度建设基础设施与房地产项目。

"They're stuck in a rock and a hard place from a standpoint that they need credit to grow," Mr. Polk said. "But at a same time they need to continue not to build up credit so fast so they need to reallocate credit towards more productive means."

波尔克说：“他们面临两难处境，他们希望信贷增长，但同时必须继续保证信贷不要增长太快，所以需要把信贷重新分配到更有效的地方。”