The Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Finance, and the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Education recently issued a joint notice encouraging local employers to hire university graduates and other young jobseekers.

The notice consolidates the city's one-time hiring and job expansion subsidies into a single policy.

According to the notice, enterprises and social organizations in Shanghai are eligible for a one-time subsidy of 1,500 yuan ($208) for each young person they employ between Jan 1 and Dec 31, 2025.

Eligible individuals include 2025 university graduates, graduates who have left school within the past two years but remain unemployed, and local youth aged 16 to 24 who are registered as unemployed.

To qualify for the subsidy, employers must sign labor contracts with these individuals and pay full social insurance contributions on their behalf for at least three months.

To further improve the user experience for employers, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security has optimized the subsidy process this year.

Building on the existing "no-application, direct-enjoyment" model, where eligibility is automatically verified via back-end data comparison, the bureau has removed the employer confirmation step, enabling more accurate and efficient distribution of subsidies.

Source: WeChat account of Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security at "shrsjwx"