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Graduates prefer State-owned to foreign companies

By Wang Xiaotian (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-31 09:43

More Chinese graduates prefer to work for a State-owned company than for a foreign-owned enterprise, according to a new survey.

The findings were based on surveys of 21,000 graduating college students across China by the human resources company www.chinahr.com.

It is the first time in seven years that Chinese companies came out on top.

Foreign companies received a historically low vote of 23 percent, compared with 34.1 percent for State-owned businesses in the poll.

"Advantages such as more stable employment and better employee benefits at State-owned companies proved to be more attractive to college students, especially given the global economic slowdown," said Ouyang Hui, a human resources (HR) research supervisor at www.chinahr.com.

Foreign companies, joint ventures and private enterprises cut back staff or scaled down recruiting plans last year, while State-owned businesses endeavored to create job opportunities for graduates in accordance with official policy," Ouyang said.

Chen Jiang, a master's degree graduate of Peking University, the most prestigious in China, moved to a State-owned integrated circuit company this summer after originally being hired by a foreign company in the same line of business.

To his surprise, Chen said, a lot of his classmates who worked for well-known foreign companies asked him to keep an eye out for any opportunities for them.

US-based Procter & Gamble and Google are the only two foreign companies in the top 10, according to the poll.

China Mobile ranked first for the second time, while past favorites Microsoft and IBM ranked 11th and 12th, respectively.

Ouyang said the State-owned companies started to attract more recruits in 2007.

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According to researchers, students were attracted most by fair human resources policies and opportunities for development and advancement when choosing a job.

Salary and benefits were the top factors in 2008. This year benefits ranked fourth, and salary ranked ninth.

"It is a good phenomenon if the investigations were conducted scientifically," said Mike Wang, HR manager of Morgan Stanley China.

"It means students could have more choices when selecting a job. But to us, it's less relevant," Wang said.

"As a leading foreign company in the field, we always pay attention to college students and try to provide them with the best career path. And we respect individual choices according to their own situations," he said.

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