Masters have highest employment

In 2014, 97.3 percent of 7,739 graduates, including 4,524 undergraduates, 2,869 postgraduates and 346 doctoral students from Xiamen University, gained employment (including further education), according to a 2014 graduate employment report recently issued by Xiamen University (XMU) in eastern China’s Fujian province.

Masters have the highest employment rate (including further education) of 98.7 percent, compared with bachelors of 97.3 percent, and doctors of 97.7 percent.

Bioscience graduates have low employment rate

Some specialties have a 100 percent undergraduate employment rate, including film and television literature, archeology, English, Japanese, Russian, German, French, social work, taxation, insurance, human resource management, management science, musicology, musical performance, painting, artistic designing, chemical engineering and technology, marine technology, environmental science, ecology, information and computing science, urban planning, nursing, journalism of broadcast and television, advertising and anthropology.

Graduates with bioscience bachelor degrees have the lowest employment rate between 80 and 85 percent, and the number is also below 90 for undergraduates in biotechnology, international politics and clinical medicine.

The lowest employment rate for postgraduates lies in genetics, quantitative economics, anthropology and foreign philosophies, with a percentage between 75 and 80.

Doctors in biochemistry and molecular biology and cell biology have the lowest employment rate, between 80 and 90 percent.

42 percent of undergraduates continue further education

The report says that 42 percent of bachelors choose to continue further education, while only 7 percent of masters chase a doctorate.

Thirty-five percent of 1,901 master-chasing undergraduates go abroad and 45 percent of master graduates, who continue further education, get overseas acceptance offers for their doctorate.

More than 40 percent of graduates enter the world’s top 100 universities for their further education, and 55.5 percent enter the top 200, the ranking according to the Times Higher Education’s 2013-2014 list.

IT and financial industry are hot employment sectors

The report reveals that most graduates find jobs in enterprises, with a percentage of 74 in undergraduates, 55 in postgraduates. Information technology and financial industries attract more than 30 percent of bachelors and masters. Nearly 60 percent of doctors work in the higher education industry.

30 percent graduates work in Xiamen

Nearly 30 percent of bachelors and masters and 20 percent of doctors choose Xiamen to start their work. Apart from Fujian province, Guangdong province and Shanghai are favorite work destinations for XMU graduates.

XMU undergraduates earn 5,000 yuan per month

The report shows that the average monthly salary of XMU undergraduates is 5,037 yuan ($812.3), and that of postgraduates is 6,048.4 yuan ($975.4). Male alumni earn more on average than their female counterparts.

Professional universities have higher employment rate

Seventy-five universities directly subordinated to the Ministry of Education of the PRC released their 2014 graduate employment report. XMU with a graduate employment rate of 96.4 percent ranks 37. Only one of 75 top Chinese universities – Lanzhou University with a rate of 88.62 – has an employment rate under 90 percent.

Reports show that comprehensive universities do not take the lead in employment numbers, with Tsinghua University ranking 14, Fudan University ranking 24, Zhejiang University ranking 35, and Peking University ranking 40, while the professional universities stand out China Medicine University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and Northeast Normal University taking the first three seats.