Chinese returning home from overseas are facing more employment pressure amid global economic slowdown and a tight job market, according to a report released this month on China's labor market.
The report, compiled by China's Tsinghua University and Fudan University, says that an increasing number of Chinese graduates who furthered their studies abroad have chosen to return home in the past six years.
A total of 1.8 million, or 74.4 percent of the overseas Chinese students, came back to their homeland after graduation since the country's reform and opening up policy in the late 1970s, the report estimates.
The young returnees, mostly millennials with a master's degree and working in state-owned or foreign-funded companies, end up earning less than expected.
In a survey conducted by Zhaopin.com, a China-based job recruitment site, 36.5 percent of the returnees earn less than 40,000 yuan (about U.S.$5,844) a year in their first job back in China, and 67.2 percent less than 60,000 yuan (about U.S.$8,766) in 2013.
Only 30 percent of the human resources directors promised to pay better for those returnees.
And the situation isn't getting better.
The report also indicated that the lower-than-expected payment contributes to frequent job-hopping. Up to 76.5 percent of the returnees said they have changed jobs.
Against this unsatisfactory payment and employment problems back home, only 50 percent of the returnees think it worthwhile to spend so much money to study abroad.
The report observes that high expectations for overseas study as well as a supply-demand gap in certain jobs might be the reason behind employment woes for returnees.
