Xingyu Pressures 107 New Graduates to Resign, General Manager Faces 12-Month Pay Cut

Xingyu, a major automotive lighting manufacturer, pressured 107 of the 440 new graduates it hired in its fall 2025 recruitment drive to resign just one month after they joined. Those targeted were reportedly forced to choose between accepting compensation and resigning or being reassigned to the factory floor, with suggestions they would be placed on a hiring blacklist if they refused. After the graduates reported the matter to major clients and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the situation escalated, prompting the company to issue an apology and offer compensation, and to announce a 12-month pay cut for its general manager. According to reporting by Huxiu’s Cool Labs (coollabs), the series of actions drew strong backlash as an unprecedented tactic by an industry leader.

This article is based on Huxiu (All Rights Reserved) and relies on fair quotation under Article 32 of the Japanese Copyright Act.

After hiring 440 new graduates, Xingyu pressured 107 of them to resign without cause just one month later, sparking public backlash and complaints from clients and ultimately leading to a 12-month pay cut for its general manager. The case has exposed the chronic problem of malicious corporate restructuring and once again highlighted the vulnerability of new graduates’ employment rights.

Timeline of Events:

Pressure on 107 Graduates to Resign

Xingyu Group is the top domestic manufacturer of automotive lighting. Its profit for the first half of the year was 991 million yuan, with cash and deposits on its books totaling 2.738 billion yuan. In its fall 2025 recruitment, it hired 440 new graduates scheduled to graduate in 2026 in a single batch. However, about one month after they joined, 107 of them were targeted for resignation pressure. The human resources department reportedly presented two options in closed-door meetings.

One was to accept compensation and resign, the other was to leave their current position and work on the factory floor tightening screws. Furthermore, it was indicated that if they chose neither, they would automatically be deemed to have chosen the latter. HR personnel reportedly suggested that there was a 400-member group of HR professionals in Changzhou and that those who refused to sign could be placed on a hiring blacklist. When the graduates sought to negotiate, they were reportedly rebuffed with remarks such as “take legal action if you want.”

Many of those targeted were graduates of Project 985 and Project 211 universities, including holders of master’s and doctoral degrees. Some had turned down multiple other job offers to join Xingyu. While the positions initially offered were in R&D, engineering, and management, the sudden proposal to reassign them was starkly different from what had been described. Although they had been welcomed as talent when hired, many felt they were treated as disposable when pressured to resign.

How the Graduates Responded:

Recordings and External Reports

What turned the situation around was the response of the graduates who had been pressured to resign. Members of the post-2000 generation, they did not react emotionally during the meetings but instead recorded their conversations with HR. They then compiled whistleblowing materials and reported the matter to Xingyu’s major clients, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, as well as to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, where the company plans to list.

All three responded that they would investigate. Mercedes-Benz, in particular, used strong language in its reply, stating that “serious ethical and labor-related misconduct exists.” Reports were also filed with the European Union (EU), and when those affected shared their plight on domestic social media, public attention surged. Within the industry, concerns spread that the scandal could derail fundraising and affect orders.

This approach differs from conventional labor disputes. Rather than being limited to individual internal negotiations or labor arbitration, it directly leveraged external disciplinary mechanisms — the supply chain’s client companies and the capital markets. For client companies, the issue concerns compliance with human rights and labor standards in their own supply chains, making clear how a supplier’s actions can spill over to affect their reputation.

Apology and Compensation:

Pay Cut for the General Manager

Amid mounting public outrage, Xingyu issued an apology on August 27. It admitted to errors in judgment and deficiencies in management and promised to pay three months’ job-seeking living allowance to the 107 graduates targeted for resignation. It was also revealed that the HR department had stated during the meetings that the decision was “unrelated to individual ability.”

At the same time, the company announced disciplinary action against its general manager, Zhou Xiaoping, in the form of a 12-month pay cut. On social media, many commented sarcastically on the contrast: while the students lost a job that could shape their lives, the top executive lost only a year’s compensation.

Suspicions also arose that the wave of hiring and firing was aimed at obtaining employment expansion subsidies that local governments provide for hiring new graduates. In response, the Changzhou Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau stated that there had been no fraudulent receipt of subsidies. It explained that the essence of the problem was not subsidy fraud but that the approach taken during negotiations was simplistic and rigid, lacking effective dialogue. However, no clear explanation has been given for the fundamental question of why the company decided to let go of 107 people — one quarter of the 440 hires — in such a short period.

A Disposable Treatment of New Graduates

Pervasive in the Industry

This case is not an isolated incident. Reporting by Huxiu notes that similar cases involving new graduates have become commonplace. Examples include receiving notice of a rescinded job offer while on a graduation trip, having a promised monthly salary of 7,000 yuan cut to 4,500 yuan just days after joining, and being dismissed for “failing to meet job requirements” just three days before the end of a probationary period.

For companies, such tactics can help secure government subsidies, reduce tax burdens, and cut labor costs. For new graduates, however, resorting to legal means such as labor arbitration risks being labeled as “troublemakers” and harming future job prospects, so many tend to suffer in silence. It has also been pointed out that while mass layoffs affecting middle-aged workers tend to cause social anxiety, problems targeting new graduates are less visible — an asymmetry that makes them harder to detect.

In particular, the handling of probationary periods functions as a loophole in the system. Dismissals just before conversion to regular employment are seen as a way to cycle staff and secure quotas for the next batch of new graduates. Proposals to cut pay are also viewed as an attempt to prompt voluntary resignation if refused, thereby allowing the company to avoid paying compensation. Both exploit the imbalance in information and bargaining power in the employment relationship.

The Fragility of New-Graduate Status:

Once Lost, It Cannot Be Regained

Under China’s system for new graduates, the two years after graduation are designated as a job-selection period. However, once a record of social insurance enrollment is created, the advantages of new-graduate status are said to be lost. Critics argue that companies exploit this temporary and irreversible nature of the status to impose unfavorable conditions.

Many of the 107 graduates who were pressured to resign are reportedly still without suitable employment. Some are lowering their expectations for salary and benefits to secure opportunities. If their only work experience is simple labor on the factory floor, the early stumble in their career development will be significant. With the class of 2026 reaching some 12.7 million new graduates, competition is intensifying, and the impact of a single departure from a job is severe.

While new-graduate status is highly useful for companies in terms of subsidies and hiring quotas, it leaves students in an extremely vulnerable position. The incident has once again highlighted how the power imbalance between companies and individuals has become entrenched and how mechanisms for correction are not functioning adequately. Even though tactics such as recording conversations and reporting externally have achieved some effect, lost time and opportunities cannot be fully recovered.

Editorial Opinion

In the short term, we expect to see more cases where external discipline from client companies and stock exchanges acts as a deterrent to corporate HR practices. Even for companies like Xingyu that hold a high market share upstream in the supply chain,指摘 from clients regarding ethics and labor standards directly affects orders and fundraising. Over the next 3 to 6 months, companies may increasingly move to enhance procedural transparency and ensure written agreements for similar cases of pressured resignations and dismissals just before the end of probationary periods. However, there is a concern that such efforts may remain merely formal and fail to lead to substantive employment protection.

From a longer-term perspective, we assess that the focus will be on a systemic review of the linkage between new-graduate status and social insurance records and the actual operation of the probationary period system. Over a 1- to 3-year horizon, there may be debate over tightening requirements for hiring subsidies and strengthening administrative oversight of rescinded offers and pay cuts. On the student side, self-protection measures such as recording meetings and reporting to external bodies may spread, while the gap may widen for those without access to such countermeasures. This is a juncture that calls for universities and authorities to improve advance information provision and consultation support systems.

References

• ” 恶意劝退107位应届生之后，星宇股份扣了女首富12个月工资 ”, by 酷玩实验室coollabs — 虎嗅网, 2026-09-07T14:10:04.000Z (ARR)
• Source URL: https://www.huxiu.com/article/4889293.html?f=rss