Item from Aug 10, 1983, in China Daily: About 15,000 graduates from 56 universities and colleges in Beijing have been assigned positions on key projects this year.

Long gone are the days, in the 1980s and 1990s, when jobs were assigned by the government, as the competition in the job market is getting tougher, especially for the increasing number of university graduates.

About 7.95 million college students will seek work this year, an increase of 300,000 over last year, according to the Ministry of Education.

To help ease the pressure, the State Council, China's Cabinet, has announced a series of policies to encourage graduates to return to their hometowns for startups or find employment in rural areas. Last year, about 615,000 graduates registered to start their own businesses. More than 100,000 college graduates worked as village officers, or cunguan, in the countryside.

Rather than swarming into megacities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, more students want to start their careers in second-tier cities, including provincial capitals and coastal cities, according to a recent survey conducted by Zhaopin, one of China's leading recruitment websites.