The University of Hong Kong

Careers Education and Placement Centre

Where did the 1996 Chinese graduates go?

I.Introduction

The information contained in this paper is extracted from the Graduate Employment Survey of 1996 to answer the following questions about Chinese majors : -

• How were they employed six months after graduation ?
• Of those who pursued further studies, what programmes did they follow ?
• Of those who were employed full-time, how long did it take them to secure their first job offer ?
• In which sectors were they employed ?
• How much did they receive in salary ?
• How many job offers did they receive ?
• Who were their employers and what were their job titles ?

II. Employment Situation in 1996

Of the 92 respondents who reported to major in Chinese, 75 graduates (82%) were in full-time employment within six months of graduation. Nine graduates (9.8%) went on for further studies. The remaining 8 graduates (8.6%) were still looking for full-time employment at the time of the survey in December 1996. (Table 1)

* HKU overall refers to the figure for the total HKU population and includes M.B.,B.S. and B.D.S graduates.

III. Further Studies

Of those who pursued further studies, all of them were enrolled in local tertiary institutions. Tale 2 shows the academic programmes Chinese graduates were engaged in and Table 3 shows the source of finance for their studies.

Source of Finance	No. of Graduates
Own Fund	1
Teaching Assistantship/Studentship	7
Scholarship + Teaching Assistantship/Studentship	1

Table 3. Source of finance for further studies

IV. Time Taken to Secure Employment

Among the 75 graduates who were in full-time employment, 92% (or 69 graduates) secured their first job offer before the end of September. By November, the employment rate reached 100%. Compared with last year, Chinese graduates were in general faster in securing employment. (Figure 1)

Figure 1. Time taken to secure employment

V. Employment Sectors

57% (or 43) of the Chinese majors were employed in commerce & industry, followed by 35% (or 26 graduates) in the education sector. 5% (or 4 graduates) joined the civil service and 3% (or 2 graduates) worked in community, social & personal services. (Figure 2)

Figure 2. Employment sectors

Figure 3. Employment sectors by sex

VI. Basic Salary and Gross Income

In general , the average income of the 1996 Chinese majors was less than that of their predecessors in the previous year. (Table 4)

* HKU average refers to the figure for the total HKU population and includes M.B.,B.S. and B.D.S. graudates.

VII.Number of Full-Time Job Offers

Of the 75 graduates in full-time employment, 46 (61%) had two or more job offers. (Figure 4)

Figure 4. No. of full-time job offers

VIII. Names of employers and Job titles

The job titles of the 75 graduates majoring in Chinese and the names of their employers are listed below.

Table 5. List of employers and job titles

No Response = 1

Note :Some alumni have indicated willingness to talk to individual students about their work. Their contact telephone number can be obtained from counsellors at CEPC.

IX.