China Telecom has signed a strategic cooperative agreement with Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Tongji University in Shanghai to implement various initiatives including a mass recruitment drive.

Under the agreement, the parties will establish medium and long-term cooperative relationships in talent training, research, and information applications, so as to realize resource sharing and promote the employment of their university graduates.

From 2002 to 2008, China Telecom Shanghai branch reportedly employed about 300 graduates from these three universities. With the current financial crisis as a background, China Telecom Shanghai will not reduce its recruitment of university graduates; instead it will increase the number by 56.5% compared with that of 2008.

In addition, reports in local media state that China Telecom has already hired 7,000 university graduates in 2009, twice as many of previous years. According to China Telecom's former human resource policy of "zero growth", the number of its newly hired employees should equal that of the retired employees. However, to solve university graduates' employment problem, the company decided to hire more graduates this year.