Overeducated, underemployed

Beijing

More than half of Chinese students who graduate from college this year will be doomed to unemployment, the Labor Ministry said this week. The number of grads has been steadily climbing in the past few years, even as job creation slows. In the second half of this year, 4.1 million people will finish university, but there are jobs for only 1.7 million of them. India, another emerging giant, may soon face a similar shortage. “The outlines of an Asian employment crisis are already taking shape,” said Ifzal Ali, chief economist of the Asian Development Bank. “Asia’s success will sooner or later be eclipsed by the pressures of a huge reserve army of unemployed.”