China sees steady graduate employment rate in 2017: survey

BEIJING — Nearly 92 percent of Chinese college students who graduated last year have found jobs, a similar rate to 2015 and 2016, a private survey has shown.

The employment rate of university graduates in 2017 was 91.6 percent, while that for graduates from junior colleges and higher vocational schools was 92.1 percent, according to a survey by education research company MyCOS.

Some 306,000 college graduates in China's 30 provincial-level regions were interviewed six months after they graduated last year.

Their average monthly income was 4,317 yuan (about $674.3), up from 3,988 yuan in 2016, according to MyCOS.

This also compares to China's average per capita disposable income for urban residents, which stood at 3,033 yuan last year.

More graduates were employed by private enterprises as well as medium-, small- and micro-sized enterprises, and more students have found jobs elsewhere after they graduated from colleges in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

Up to 14.7 percent of university graduates last year were employed in the education industry, while the construction industry hired the most junior college and higher vocational school graduates.