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(Yicai Global) Jan. 2 -- Mindray Biomedical Electronics, one of China's leading medical device makers, has scrapped labor contracts with over 200 soon-to-be graduates before their first day in the office.
The Shenzhen-based firm has pledged to pay each of the students CNY5,000 (USD727) as an apology, a postgraduate from Xi'an University of Technology told Yicai Global. He received the news in a Dec. 29 phone call when the company said it was cancelling the contract due to a business adjustment.
Chinese postgrads typically graduate at the end of winter, while those receiving their bachelor's degree usually end their studies in the summer.
Students got word a day earlier that their contracts may be being cancelled in a chat group on social media app WeChat, though the company has not issued a public statement on the matter yet. It shut its on-campus recruitment booths on Dec. 28 and then began phoning the graduates to be, asking them to send their bank account number via email and informing them that they would receive a termination notice after the New Year holiday. Some got theirs even sooner.
Mindray ranked first among China's medical device makers with revenue of CNY11.2 billion (USD1.6 billion last year. It has 45 service stations in 30 of the country's provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions and more than 500 authorized service subcontracts.
The firm has 40 subsidiaries in 30 foreign countries in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America and employs nearly 10,000 workers the world over to sell its products to 11,000 medical institutions.
Editor: James Boynton