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Updated Friday, June 12, 2009 9:40 am TWN, By Tricia Chen, The China Post

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Part-time job search rate among college students hits record high

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The amount of college students hoping to work part-time this summer has reached a record high of a nearly 90 percent, a study showed yesterday.

According to a survey conducted by Minijob.com.tw — a job search engine under 104 Job Bank — more college students are eager to work over the summer vacation this year than ever before.

Eighty-six percent of the students wanting to work from July said the reason is to earn extra spending money, the survey showed.

The study also showed that 61 percent of them want to work because they believe gaining work experience is essential to locating a full-time job when they graduate.

“Perhaps influenced by the frequent news reporting on the current high unemployment rate, students are aware of how difficult it can be for fresh graduates to locate a full-time job,” said Fang Kuang-wei from 104 Job Bank.

The study also discovered that about 70 percent of the students are currently in the process of searching for a part-time job, while around 13 percent have already located one.

More than 50 percent of the students realize the level of difficulty of finding a part-time job this summer is higher than previous years, said Minijob.com.tw.

Minijob.com.tw added that there are currently a total of 16,000 part-time jobs listed in their system but about 25,000 students are searching for work.

“Those who wish to work this summer should pick up their job searching and hurry up,” said Fang.

On average, each student only has a 40 percent chance of getting part-time work, according to the statistics.

A previous survey done by 104 Job Bank showed that this year's graduates face the toughest battle for jobs as the number of available positions has decreased by 40 percent this year compared to last year.

According to the study, there will be about 58,000 graduates competing for nearly 66,000 jobs this year.

This is a drastic decrease from the approximate 110,000 positions available in 2008.

Fang advised graduates to apply to jobs as soon as they can and be sure to list all achievements and past experiences to enable a resume to stand out from others.

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