BEIJING -- College graduates in Beijing will leave campus roughly a month earlier than the usual time this summer due to the Olympics which is scheduled to start on August 8 in the city.

Beijing municipal education authorities required all colleges located in Beijing to have their graduates leave campus at least one month earlier than they are usually asked to do.

Therefore, career service offices in local colleges sped up their paces in job counseling for would-be graduates. The majority of graduating students might find jobs before the end of April.

As usual, graduating students from prestigious schools are more competitive in the job market.

Qi Jinli, director of the career service office at Qinghua University, said 2,000 domestic and foreign employers provide more than 25,000 vacancies for the 3,800 graduating Qinghua students. Among those students, about 1,400 have found jobs. Qinghua is best-known for churning out high-quality engineers and technologists.

Beijing is among the Chinese cities harboring most universities. Statistics from the Ministry of Education said the number of college students graduating in summer 2008 will reach a record high of 5.59 million, 640,000 more than that in 2007. Some of the graduating students will continue their academic pursuit in graduate schools, but the majority chunk of the college graduates will enter the job market.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Security said the urban unemployment rate in the past five years were lower than 4.3 percent. The government, however, sets the target of unemployment rate a little higher in 2008 to 4.5 percent.

While the upcoming Olympics will create jobs in Beijing, economists said, the jobs directly related to the international sports event were likely to be overwhelmingly unpaid volunteer positions.

Some have estimated that the Olympics would need at least 100,000 volunteers working at the event venues, most of whom will be from colleges and universities.

The Beijing municipal education authorities have encouraged college students to volunteer, promising that these hours would be credited to their performance standing. Volunteers might also get some preference in job applications.