Employers in China are offering starting salaries to fresh college and university graduates, with the financial industry the most lucrative, a survey conducted by 51job.com, China's biggest online recruitment agency, has found.

The average starting salary is more than 10 percent higher than that on average in 2014.

The financial industry offers more than 10,000 yuan ($1,600) a month to both graduates and postgraduates.

From 2013 to 2015, 219 of the 263 large enterprises in 15 major industries that recruited most new graduates offered a monthly salary of 5,000 yuan or above, the survey found.

Some sales positions offer a lower salary but promise high sales commissions depending on the employee's achievements. Many employers offer similar salaries to bachelor's and master's degree holders, with the latter earning only 1,000-2,000 yuan higher.

The hottest industry, e-commerce, offers a minimum of 3,500 yuan and a maximum of 16,000 yuan a month, plus 16 months' pay a year, for non-sales positions.

As for the financial industry, both bachelor's and master's degree holders are receiving offers in excess of 10,000 yuan this year, with a maximum monthly salary of 17,000 yuan for the latter, with most graduates being recruited for product development and industry research positions. This sets them up for a likely further boost in annual income of over one million yuan in the next three to five years.

Less than 10 percent of the companies offer a monthly salary of less than 5,000 yuan, and most of the positions in this group are sales jobs, which usually promise high sales commissions.

Engineering jobs in real estate and project construction industries offer a monthly salary somewhere between 8,000 to 10,000 yuan, but those jobs are usually physically demanding and highly stressful. Planning and management posts in listed or well-known companies earn around 5,000 yuan a month.

Feng Lijuan, the chief human resources expert at 51job.com, says even if the monthly salary exceeds 10,000 yuan, enterprises will still need to focus considerable time and energy in training new college graduates. Retaining talent is an even bigger problem following initial recruitment, she says.

Creating a flexible, innovative and interesting workplace environment as well as development opportunities will be an important task for employers, she suggests.

Due to high entry-level salaries, balancing income gaps at different periods of the employees' careers is also a challenge for employers, she warns.