Chinese college graduates witnessed a drop in both their employment rate and salary last year compared with 2007, according to a report on their employment situation in 2008 released on Wednesday.

The report based on a survey which was conducted in January this year and covered 218,000 college graduates in 2008.

By the end of 2008, the employment rate of last year's college graduates stood at 86 percent, down two percentage points year-on-year, said the report, published by the Social Sciences Academic Press in the form of a blue paper.

About one third of the graduates found jobs in the six months after their graduation in June, it said.

The report also showed a big drop in college graduates' salary.

The average monthly salary of graduates of colleges listed in the "211 program", the country's key education development project, was cut by 14 percent from a year earlier to 2,549 yuan (about US$373) in 2008, according to the report.

And the salary of graduates from other colleges dropped 11 percent year-on-year to 2,030 yuan last year, it said.

China has more than 1,700 higher learning institutions, about 6 percent of them are in the "211 Program" list.

College graduates are having a hard time finding jobs this year as posts are being axed due to the economic slowdown.

China has 6.11 million college students due to graduate this year, and one million from last year are still looking for jobs, according to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

(Xinhua News Agency June 11, 2009)