BEIJING - A recent survey showed overseas-educated Chinese still prefer to work in China's first-tier cities after returning to the country.

About 18.6 percent of respondents returning from overseas chose to work in Beijing, followed by Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen with 15.6 percent, 13.4 percent and 12 percent respectively, according to the survey jointly released by China's major job search websites and a study abroad agency.

Emerging cities such as Hangzhou, Wuhan, Nanjing, Chengdu and Suzhou are also popular among returned Chinese looking to find work.

Jobs in finance, IT, telecommunication, electronics and internet sectors as well as in education, are the top choices for returnees, while internet, finance, real estate, education and training, and machinery manufacturing sectors have stronger demand for returnees, according to the survey.

Nearly 50 percent of respondents have done some form of career planning before studying abroad or during their study abroad, the survey said.

China is currently in the middle of its biggest ever influx of returning overseas-educated graduates.

According to another survey released on Aug 30 by the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), a major Chinese think tank, more than 2.65 million Chinese who studied overseas had returned to China as of the end of 2016.

In 2016 alone, more than 432,000 foreign-educated Chinese had returned to the country, up 58.48 percent from that in 2012.