Summary

A recent report published by Chinese recruitment site Boss Zhipin has looked into employment trends among Chinese students who have studied abroad, based mainly on data from jobseekers who graduated in 2017 and 2018. The report shows that so-called "tier 2" cities such as Hangzhou, Chengdu and Nanjing are becoming increasingly popular among returnees, while the list of top employers is dominated by companies in the IT and finance area.

Overall, the most popular places for returned bachelor's and master's degree graduates to seek work are still the country's largest "tier one" cities. Beijing accounts for almost a quarter of the total, while Shanghai accounts for another 23 per cent and 12 per cent decide to look for work in Shenzhen. However, this proportion has fallen since last year and the share taken by tier two cities has risen to over 28 per cent, up 1.2 percentage points compared to last year. Hangzhou is the most popular of these tier two cities and already attracts more students than traditional favoured destination Guangzhou; other major returnee destinations include Chengdu, Nanjing and Wuhan.

The report also contains a list of the top 30 employers applied to or followed by returnee jobseekers. 14 of these employers were IT companies, with China's three domestic internet giants - Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu - taking three of the top five spaces. Finance was another leading sector, including the remaining two top-five companies, CITIC Securities and Bank of China as well as 10 other companies in this field. The remaining employers on the list were private education groups and multinational professional services companies. It should be noted that data on the top employers reflects returnees' jobsearching behaviour, and might not always line up with the number of returnees who actually manage to find jobs in these companies.

Looking at the specific positions applied to by returnees, the fields with the fastest growth in the last year are also in IT and finance – data mining, speech recognition and investment take the top three spots. However, the report measures this growth in percentage terms and so these are not necessarily the fields that employ the most returned graduates, or even the areas with the largest net growth in terms of the number of applicants.

Analysis by Kevin Prest, Senior Analyst, International Education Services

As most Chinese international students return home after finishing their courses, awareness of trends in employment of returned Chinese students can help UK HEIs to better support their graduates in finding work. The increasing proportion of students looking to work outside China's four tier 1 cities means that UK institutions should pay more attention to relationships with employers and alumni in a wider range of cities across the country. Hangzhou is becoming particularly important, partly as it is the headquarters of a number of major Chinese IT companies including Alibaba. The dominance of IT and finance companies on the list of top employers shows that UK universities should be working to build relationships with employers in these sectors in China.

Sources

1. Sina (in Chinese): http://news.sina.com.cn/o/2018-06-28/doc-iheqpwqy0365494.shtml

2. China News (in Chinese): http://www.chinanews.com/cj/2018/06-27/8548588.shtml