The employment and further studies rate among local graduates reached 88 percent last week - almost the same percentage as last year, the Shanghai Education Commission said yesterday.
This includes graduates who have secured a job, been admitted to postgraduate studies, decided to study abroad or who are starting up their own businesses.
A breakdown of the overall figure was not available.
In May, only 44 percent of senior students at local universities and colleges had found a job or signed up for more studies - down 2 percent from the previous year.
Li Ruiyang, deputy director of the commission, said the overall employment situation of graduates was stable, though graduates had found it hard to find a job in the first two quarters of the year due to the economic slowdown.
"Schools have organized a lot of job fairs and recommended students to companies, which helped the employment rate grow quickly," Li said.
Manufacturing, social service, finance and insurance, education and culture are the main industries employing graduates, recruiting more than half of graduates in the job market.
The commission also conducted a survey into unemployed students. Half claimed they would be signing a job offer soon. Ten percent are preparing for next year's postgraduate entrance exam and 20 percent are still looking for jobs.
Some 20 percent of the jobless graduates said they did not intend finding a job or pursuing further studies.
The commission said the employment rates of postgraduates and undergraduates fell 0.7 and 0.6 percentage point respectively to 90 percent and 86 percent while the employment rate among college and vocational school graduates rose 2.8 percentage points to 90 percent.
"Vocational school graduates are less picky about jobs and pay. What they learned is also more practical and fits into the needs of companies," said Xia Jianguo, principal of Shanghai Dianji University.
Xu Donghao, a graduate of Shanghai Publishing and Printing College, signed an offer with the Shanghai Banknote Printing Plant last September.
"I am very lucky because the plant came to our school to recruit employees directly," Xu said. "I got the offer because I had won an award in a national printing skills contest which proved my ability for the job."
Pursue further studies
Meanwhile, more and more university students prefer to pursue further studies.
At Fudan University, less than 30 percent of graduates went to the job market, the rest choosing to keep studying.
"The main goal of our undergraduate education is to establish a foundation for postgraduate studies," said Liu Jinhua, director of student employment center of Fudan University.
As Shanghai continues to close outdated plants, the number of traditional positions for graduates may fall, Li said.
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