| Home / China / National News | Tools: Save | Print | E-mail | Most Read |
| Housing, Medicine, Jobs -- Chinese Dreams for 2007 |
| Adjust font size: |
Four years working as a white-collar worker in He makes 5,000 yuan (US$640) a month as an IT engineer, but that's only half the average price for a square meter of housing in downtown When Liu finished college study in 2002, he had vowed to buy an apartment in three years at most so that his parents would leave their countryside home in central "They spent up their savings to finance my education through college while other villagers had moved into bigger houses," said Liu. "I just hope houses in A recent survey made by the Shanghai government shows 33 percent of the new settlers in the city think they'd need at least10 years of hard work to buy an apartment, 32 percent said they would need six to 10 years and 20 percent said five years. "If the Chinese government's macro control policy could drive down the house prices in big cities, I might make enough for the down payment of a two-bedroom apartment in a year or two," said Liu as he moonlighted as a gaming software programmer on the New Year's Day. Sun Lijuan's family in north "If I had been sick like that I doubt if I would have readily paid the bills," said Sun, a laid-off worker from a state-owned firm in the provincial capital of Sun received a government-sponsored vocational training program toward the end of the year and is having her fingers crossed that she might find a new job this year. She might not know the gloomy job market is set to disappoint tens of thousands of new graduates in 2007, let alone laid-off workers. Ministry of Education said there'll be 4.95 million new graduates, 820,000 more than last year. For many graduates, the slim job market has overshadowed their new year. "In 2006 I visited seven recruitment fairs, distributed more than 50 resumes and went to three interviews," said Xu Liying, a senior student at Shanghai Foreign Trade Institute. "Job offers? Zero." Xu, an advertisement major, said she's a straight-A student but has been rejected by many employers. "Why is it so difficult to find a job? Give me a job -- that's the best New Year gift I would ever dream of." Citizens in The city, one of the most polluted in Local hospitals were crowded with respiratory disease patients even on the New Year's Day. "Have you got any idea when it will clear up?" asked a young man who offers yacht rides in the Like the air, the Yellow River turned red and white last year with industrial flushing and sewage water, which annoyed many citizens in "I don't mind working twice as hard to make the city a better place to live," said a cleaner who gave only her family name as Lu. She starts sweeping the ground on a downtown square at 4:30 AM every day. (Xinhua News Agency January 2, 2007) |
| Tools: Save | Print | E-mail | Most Read |
 |
| Related Stories |
