Mainland graduate students find jobs in HK hard to come by

Hong Kong is losing hundreds of talented mainlanders each year because many postgraduate students in the city from across the border are unable to find work, a mainland graduate group says.

This is despite findings by the Hong Kong Association of Mainland Graduates last year that 92 per cent of the 186 university and graduate students it polled said they wanted to remain in the city for work.

Association president Geng Chunya, a graduate from Tsinghua University in Beijing, who completed a master's degree at City University, said the loss of talent was a more serious problem among graduate students than undergraduates.

'It is easier for undergraduates to blend into the community. They spend more time with their course mates and there is always more support and information for them.

'But for research or graduate students, they can hide on the campus for years and no one would even notice.'

The association estimated fewer than 3,000 mainland students graduated last year in Hong Kong, of which more than two-thirds came from master's and doctoral programmes, while one third were undergraduate students. However, only 10 to 20 per cent of the research students who graduated last year stayed behind for jobs or studies, compared to more than 50 per cent of the bachelor's degree graduates.