THE HIGH COST OF FEAR:

For hundreds of thousands of Chinese people, Beijing's crackdown on after-school tutoring this summer means their well-paying jobs are disappearing quickly.

While it's difficult to pin down the exact scale of the job losses, data and CNBC interviews with people in the education industry point to how the abrupt policy change is adding pressure to Beijing's efforts to tackle unemployment, particularly among a record 9.09 million recent graduates this year.

Tutoring businesses had little notice when a harsher-than-expected policy on school-age academic courses was released in late July, banning operation on weekends and holidays, and ordering them to restructure as non-profits. The directive was meant to reduce the burden on families, who often spend large portions of their incomes on hours of supplemental courses for their children, even those in elementary school or younger.

Companies lost large revenue sources overnight. Many employees lost a career path. Public disclosures show that prior to this summer, seven after-school tutoring companies, mostly listed in the U.S., had more than 250,000 full-time and contract employees combined.

Within a few weeks, the number of job seekers with a background in the education and training industry jumped -- up 10.4% in July from the prior month, and greater than the 6.3% increase across the market, according to a report last week from recruitment site Zhaopin.

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