Tencent offers 28,000 internships as China grapples with youth unemployment

With 12 million fresh graduates entering the job market this summer, Chinese Big Tech companies are ramping up their recruitment efforts

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Tencent has kicked off a new round of hiring. Photo: Reuters

Published: 9:00pm, 17 Apr 2025Updated: 2:08am, 18 Apr 2025

Chinese technology giant Tencent Holdings announced a significant campus recruitment initiative on Thursday, offering 28,000 internships over the next three years as the country’s 12 million fresh graduates face challenges in securing employment.

The Shenzhen-based company said it would strive to retain more interns as permanent employees, although it did not specify the proportion. This year alone, Tencent plans to hire 10,000 interns who are graduating in summer or later.

Among these positions, 6,000 will be related to fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, cloud computing and video gaming engines, the company said in a post on WeChat.

As of the end of March, Tencent reported an over 55,000-strong workforce. Including staff from subsidiaries, the company had 110,558 employees at the end of last year, up from 105,417 the previous year, according to its annual report. Tencent’s headcount peaked in 2021 at 112,771.

A jobseeker speaks with a recruiter at a job fair at Hubei University of Technology in east China. Photo: Xinhua

With 12.22 million fresh graduates entering the job market this summer, Chinese Big Tech companies are ramping up their recruitment efforts.

While the government has made youth employment a top priority, the jobless rate for non-students aged 16 to 24 stood at 16.5 per cent by the end of March, well above the overall urban unemployment rate of 5.2 per cent.