Even though a six-month probationary period is the legal limit, many soon-to-be graduates accept extended probationary periods of one year in order to secure a job before they graduate, reported Xinhua on Thursday.

Job hunters attend a job fair in Hefei, capital of East China's Anhui Province December 10, 2006. More than 300 companies at the fair offered 13,000 vacancies to up to 20,000 graduates who are struggling to enter the work force. [Newsphoto]

A senior at Sichuan University, surnamed Xu, has been hunting for a job for more than three months, and has gone through numerous tests, interviews and physical examinations. Xu says employers usually mention the postponed probationary period last. Xu challenged recruitment coordinators when he was told the probationary period would be extended from three months to one year. He was told the extension allowed the company to better assess the new employee, but Xu thinks its just a way of lowering HR planning costs.

Many companies are offering jobs with one-year probationary periods at campus recruitment fairs in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, according to the report.

"Five out of eight of the companies I previously applied to wanted a postponed probationary period," an undergraduate surnamed Yan told the reporter. Yan's complaint was echoed by ten other students at the Enrolment and Vocation Guidance Office at Sichuan University.

"We took two factors into account when we came up with the new probation period," said an HR manager who spoke on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to publicly comment on the issue. "One is to lower the cost of running our business, and the other is to buffer the impact of students leaving for other jobs within the first year."

The manager said he is not worried about recruitment because he believes the job market, where there are more job hunters than jobs available, will lead to potential employees making compromises.

According to Chinese law, both employers and employees have the right to terminate their relationship at any time for any reason and bear no responsibility. Some employers portray the postponed probation period as a chance for students to decide whether the position meets their expectations.

Wang Xu, a lawyer with Sichuan Shizheng Law Firm said the postponed probation period extends beyond the legal cap of six-months under the Labor Law code, and job seekers could turn to local labor and security departments for help.

The Ministry of Education predicted in Dec. 2006 that the prospects of student job-hunters would be bleak in 2007, with a record high of 4.95 million graduates looking for jobs, 820,000 more than in 2006.