The companies, including TCL Electronics, Zhengjiang Uniview Technologies, Chinese electrical appliance manufacturer Midea Group as well as artificial intelligence companies Fano Labs and 4 Paradigm, are offering paid positions exclusively to college students in Hong Kong, according to their postings on social media.

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The positions include programme developers, market officers, human resource officers and administration officers, among others.

“Some universities in Hong Kong do not have the stable conditions for study,” read a Uniview job posting on its WeChat official account, which offered internship positions in its Hangzhou headquarters as well as in Shenzhen, Wuhan, Tianjian, Jinan and Xi’an.

“We believe that internship experience in mainland China, working with excellent peers, will help Hong Kong students display their expertise and better grasp the opportunities in the era of rapid development.”

Fano Labs, an artificial intelligence company spun off from Hong Kong University in 2015, also said it is providing job opportunities in its offices in Shenzhen, China’s major tech hub next to the Hong Kong special administrative region.

“We’ve received several inquiries from university students from Hong Kong, and our colleagues from different departments are communicating with them to work out the best plan of internship,” a spokesperson for Fano Labs said.

Not many details are currently available as the openings were just published on Wednesday, the spokesperson said, adding that the students also need time to learn about the company as well as monitor the situation in Hong Kong and the universities.

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“As a Hong Kong-based start-up with teammates from diverse backgrounds, we’ll do our utmost to contribute to the community and make some difference. We do hope the chaos and violence will be ended soon, and people’s life be back on track.”

Midea Group said it would provide internship pay, reimbursement for high-speed rail travel from Hong Kong to Guangdong province where it is based, as well as accommodation and housing subsidies for interns who are assigned tutors by the company.

TCL specified that its offer was for mainland Chinese students studying in Hong Kong, but the other companies said their offers were open to all students in Hong Kong, including international ones.

The companies did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

Before the companies stepped up with their offers, a number of government-backed community organisations in Hong Kong and Shenzhen said they would help mainland Chinese students who planned to leave the city.

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In Shenzhen, the city’s branch of the Communist Youth League said on Wednesday it would allow students returning to the mainland to stay free for up to seven days at one of its 12 accommodation facilities.

The Peking University HSBC Executive MBA student’s association said on Thursday it would host some students from Hong Kong so they could continue studies near a Shenzhen university campus, with up to seven days accommodation for free.

The central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong issued a notice on Sunday saying Beijing would help mainland students in Hong Kong. On Wednesday morning Hong Kong marine police deployed a ship to help students from the mainland leave the CUHK campus.

Hong Kong’s eight publicly funded universities are home to roughly 18,000 non-local students. Students from more than 50 countries and territories make up about one-fifth of CUHK’s 20,000-strong student body.

Additional reporting by Iris Deng and Jane Zhang