China urges SOEs, internet companies to offer more jobs as 12.7 million set to graduate

In its latest effort to support the employment of millions of fresh graduates, China is mobilising state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and major private technology firms to expand hiring, marking one of its broadest labour market interventions in recent years.

Eight government departments, including the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, have launched a nationwide campaign requiring SOEs to hire more graduates from the class of 2026 – as well as those who have remained unemployed since graduating in the past two years.

A notice issued by the ministry this week said a centralised recruitment platform would be established to disseminate job openings across public employment service networks and university career portals. The programme will run until December.

Earlier, in a rare shift of focus towards the private technology sector, the Ministry ordered local employment authorities to survey job vacancies at major internet companies and encourage them to release more positions for university graduates and other young jobseekers.

The ministry would also launch a month-long recruitment campaign in June that would require local governments to work with internet firms to organise online recruitment activities, including live-streamed hiring sessions – a TikTok-style format in which employers promote jobs and answer questions from applicants in real time – it said in a notice posted on its website on May 28.

Job openings would also be published through the ministry’s official recruitment platform, while regions with large concentrations of internet companies, including Beijing, Shanghai and Sichuan province, have been told to organise dedicated recruitment fairs.