A national job fair held this weekend in the Chinese capital attracted so many job seekers that the doors had to be opened an hour earlier than planned.

With tens of thousands of people -- many of the university students, queuing in front of the job fair venue in downtown Beijing early in the morning, organizers opened the doors at 8 AM.

On Saturday alone, some 20,000 job seekers packed the fair for the 30,000 job vacancies. On Sunday, still more students showed up to drop of applications and see what jobs were on offer.

According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, 1.4 million Chinese university and college graduates are likely not to find jobs when they finish their study next summer.

The ministry predicts that 4.95 million students will graduate from higher education institutions next year, 820,000 more than this year. About 30 percent of the graduates are unlikely to find jobs.

In Beijing alone, there will be 200,000 student job seekers next year, some 20,000 more than the 2006 figure. In China, about 1.24 million graduates could not find jobs this year.

The Ministry of Education, together with several other departments, have launched an Internet league to help graduates find jobs, planning to hold an on-line job fair every quarter, through which graduates obtain employment information and employers hold on-line interviews.

(Xinhua News Agency December 5, 2006)