Ministry strikes blow at hukou

Employers in provincial capitals and lower-level cities have been urged to remove restrictions such as hukou, or household registration, to promote equality when hiring college graduates.

The Ministry of Education, in an official document released on Wednesday, also asked that no bias be given for ethnicity, gender or religion.

The hukou registration system was specifically mentioned as a detriment to equal hiring practices. Officials have described hukou as a hindrance to urbanization that prevents many migrants from accessing public services in cities.

China's Leading Group for Overall Reform has discussed plans for an overhaul of the household registration systems, which include reforms on the hukou system, Xinhua reported on Saturday.

Speaking to the reform group on June 6, President Xi Jinping said the aim is to fully remove hukou restrictions in towns and small cities, gradually ease restrictions in medium-sized cities, set reasonable conditions for settling in big cities, and strictly control the population of megacities.

"Accelerating reform of the household registration system is an important part of urbanization and involves hundreds of millions of rural migrants," Xinhua quoted Xi as saying.

In turn, the ministry asked employers to simplify the hiring procedures for college graduates when they're to maintain hukou in the cities where they would be working.

It also required State-owned enterprises to show full transparency in recruiting college graduates, with a period of no less than seven days for posting the lists of vacancies and planned recruits online.

The ministry also strengthened supervision on protecting graduates' legal rights during their employment.