First, let's look at some numbers.
440, this is the number of new graduates that Xingyu Co., Ltd. signed for the 2025 fall recruitment, most of whom are master's degree holders from "double non" universities. They started work in July; on August 7, just one month after joining, HR began to talk to them in batches.
107, which is the final number of people whose labor contracts were terminated. Nearly 300 others signed "voluntary resignations" under pressure.
Each student was confronted with a binary choice: sign a resignation agreement citing "personal reasons" that day and leave with half a month's salary—some received as little as 4,000 yuan—or refuse and be reassigned to frontline assembly work, inserting wire connectors at 20 yuan per hour, 11 to 12 hours a day, with the original one-month production line internship extended to three months.
There is an audio recording as evidence. The HR representative stated on the spot that there is an HR group of over 400 people in Changzhou, and that signing in coordination would prevent the background check from being affected. When the student wanted to consider it for three days, the HR representative said the maximum consideration time was half an hour, and that if they didn't sign, they would be transferred to a different position.
This is not a small workshop, but a listed company on the A-share market, the domestic leader in automotive lighting, backed by the wealthiest woman in Changzhou. It was just awarded one of the "Top 10 Best Employers in Changzhou" in January this year, with an official motto of "Love, Gratitude, Responsibility".
It's not that companies can't survive—it's that fresh graduates are the easiest to push around.
Today I want to discuss, not "criticizing BYD", but three questions: why are recent graduates being laid off; what is the company's strategy; and what does this incident mean for ordinary people and companies.
First, let's take a look at the complete script of this play
Don't rush to blame a certain HR person, first lay out the timeline.
In the 2025 fall recruitment season, Xingyu signed 440 new graduates in one go, focusing on master's students from "double non" universities, promising them R&D, technical, and management positions. One detail stands out: many students gave up other companies' tripartite agreements and paid breach of contract penalties, missing the golden window of fall recruitment, essentially putting all their eggs in one basket with Xingyu's offer.
In July 2026, new employees joined the company. Just over a month later, in early August, the HR department interviewed them in batches, citing the same reasons: "the industry market environment is unfavorable", "operating performance is poor", and "organizational structure adjustments".
Then there's the "either-or" option: sign and leave with half a month's salary, or refuse to sign and be sent to the production line to tighten screws. And the two "soft knife" sentences: "A 400-plus person HR group will facilitate signing, and background checks won't be affected"; "You have at most half an hour to consider". Translated, these two sentences mean: if you leave, it will be dignified; if you don't leave, I'll make you leave in a humiliating manner. This isn't negotiation, it's a gentle form of coercion.
Ultimately, about 70% of the students signed to leave, with 107 people having their contracts terminated. On August 25, the Changzhou Human Resources and Social Security Bureau reported that the method was simple and crude, lacking sufficient communication, and the HR director was suspended. On August 27, Star Universe issued an apology letter, providing a three-month job search subsidy, with some students already receiving 15,000 yuan, and promising to provide an additional six months' worth of salary if they fail to find a job within three months.
You see, the apology came quickly, and the compensation was given quickly as well. But this just goes to show that it wasn't that they couldn't afford to pay the money, it's that they never had any intention of paying it in the first place.
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First of all, let's finish asking this question: in a building with hundreds or thousands of people, why are they laying off new graduates who have only been on the job for a month, rather than someone else?
New graduates are the ones with the lowest cost of termination in the entire company. Laying off older employees requires paying N+1 compensation, involves lengthy negotiations, and may lead to arbitration or even going viral on social media. In contrast, new graduates are on a probationary period, have lower salaries, and have just started paying social insurance, so the penalty for termination is minimal, equivalent to just half a month's salary. The cost is so low that even the legal department of a listed company can calculate it with their eyes closed.
Because new graduates have the weakest bargaining power. They have no union, no achievements, and are irreplaceable. A master's graduate who has been on the job for only a month is a replaceable part for a leading automotive lighting company. When HR says they want to transfer them, the student can't even say "I don't accept" fluently, because their chips are zero.
What's even more frustrating is the status of being a recent graduate. As soon as they start working, they are insured, and as soon as they are insured, they lose their recent graduate status. Channels like taking the civil service exam, taking the recruitment exam for public institutions, and state-owned enterprise campus recruitment, which only consider the term "recent graduate", are all closed overnight. Therefore, for those 107 students, many are stuck in the middle: "No experience for social recruitment, no recent graduate status for campus recruitment." They didn't lose due to a lack of ability, but due to a window period of "status".
New graduates are the company's weakest link and the cheapest eraser, and companies calculate clearly: erasing them results in the cleanest ledger and the smallest cost.
New graduates are not new employees, but rather a kind of "option" that companies buy during peak seasons: they are exercised when the market is good and abandoned when the market is bad.
Thirdly, companies are not lacking in funds, but rather, they have done the math and made a calculation.
Some people may wonder: is STARLUX really facing operational difficulties and has no other choice?
I advise you to check the account first.
Xingyu's 2025 revenue was 15.257 billion yuan, with a net profit of 1.624 billion yuan attributable to the parent company. As of the end of the first quarter of 2026, the company had 2.08 billion yuan in cash and equivalents on its books. In the first half of 2026, revenue grew by 1.87%, but net profit declined by 5.26%. Net profit in the second quarter fell by 18% year-over-year.
This is a profitable company with cash on hand, it's just experiencing a slowdown in growth. The normal response to a slowdown is to control costs and adjust the structure, not to lay off 440 newly hired graduates all at once.
Why the rush, given the sensitive timing? On July 29, Star Universe submitted its listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for the second time, restarting its "A+H" listing plan. On August 8, it launched a buyout of employees. While pushing for a Hong Kong IPO, it is also laying off new graduates, leading outsiders to make straightforward guesses: to reduce labor costs, beautify its financial reports, and show the capital market a cleaner profit statement.
There are two sets of data. In 2025, Star Universe reduced its workforce by nearly 2,900 people; the total hours and compensation for outsourced labor increased by more than three times compared to 2022. Consider this combination: the company is laying off full-time employees while expanding outsourcing. This shows that it's not that they don't want people, it's that they don't want people they have to "support and take responsibility for". Outsourcing doesn't require paying social insurance, providing compensation, or taking responsibility. New graduates and outsourcing are two sides of the same logic.
So the truth is not that they "can't make a living," but that the accounts are calculated too precisely. In the face of the three aspects of IPO, profit, and growth, the youth of 440 college graduates is a liability that can be written off at any time.
The "Best Employer" image, why did it shatter so quickly?
What angers many people the most is the stark contrast: it won the "Top 10 Best Employers in Changzhou" award in January with the slogan "Love, Gratitude, Responsibility", yet by August, it was "screw them if they don't quit".
How can a company be so divided? My answer is: it was never divided to begin with. Because being the "best employer" was never a promise, but a marketing budget.
The award for the best employer is used to attract recruits, not to treat employees well. Its function is to reassure new graduates to sign contracts, to make talented individuals willing to switch jobs, and to make the campus recruitment booths look good. It has fulfilled its mission at the recruitment stage, and how it treats employees afterwards is a separate matter.
You think a company's collapse is due to its public image, but in fact, it's the collapse of its recruitment credibility. If it dares to treat 440 students this way this year, how many students will dare to sit at its recruitment booth next year? This isn't some obscure concept, it's basic business sense: a brand can use marketing to attract people, but a brand that can't retain people will see its marketing costs rise year after year.
The apology is also noteworthy. Suspending the HR director appears to be a response, but in reality, the decision affecting hundreds of thousands of people is being pushed onto the HR department. Lawyers put it more bluntly: terminating the contracts of 107 people simultaneously meets the scale of economic layoffs, which requires a 30-day advance notice and filing according to regulations. The company used "one-on-one talks" to fragment the issue and the phrase "personal reasons" to circumvent the statutory procedure, thereby avoiding double compensation for illegal termination.
So I want to say: apologizing and suspending duties is an explanation to public opinion, but it's not easy to shirk responsibility for the procedures.
5. So, who ultimately lost out in this play?
Let's calculate this and see who ends up losing.
First, consider the new graduates. They lost their status as new graduates, lost the autumn recruitment window, and lost trust. Some paid breach-of-contract fees to other companies, while others staked their lives on a single job offer. Even with a subsidy of 15,000 yuan and six months of compensation, this autumn they will have to prove themselves again in the torrent of social recruitment. This money can compensate for the financial loss, but it cannot make up for the lost time, the lost status, or the expectation of "I should be respected".
Looking at the company, its public image has collapsed, with Volkswagen China launching a special investigation, its ESG rating being questioned, and its Hong Kong IPO now under a cloud. News of 2,900 job cuts over the past year has resurfaced, with its recruitment credibility plummeting to zero. The potential savings may be tens of millions of yuan in costs, but the damage to its employer brand could take decades to repair.
Looking at the entire society, when a leading enterprise treats new graduates in this way, the trust of all new graduates and enterprises is overdrawn once. In every subsequent campus recruitment, students will ask one more question: will this company do the same? For every tripartite agreement, students will think for one more second: is this promise worth staking my new graduate status on?
Trust is something that takes ten years to build, but can be destroyed in an instant. By cutting costs, STAR Market is saving money, but it is undermining the trust of the entire industry.
Ultimately, new graduates have become companies' "reversible assets"
It's not that companies can't afford to pay, it's that they take advantage of new graduates.
This statement sounds harsh, but it reveals the underlying structure of the play: in the face of capital and profit, new graduates are defined as "reversible assets". When the market is good, you are talent; when the market is bad, you are a liability; when the market fluctuates, you are a disposable buffer that can be abandoned in batches. Assets can depreciate, be scrapped, and be written off, but they don't require an apology. However, assets don't get angry, people do.
Today, Star Universe can sign 440 students, and tomorrow companies will follow suit; today, 107 students lost their status as new graduates, which is the tuition fee the entire society pays for short-sightedness. We can accept corporate layoffs, but we cannot accept threatening a newcomer with "being screwed"; we can accept industry fluctuations, but we cannot accept treating the people with the least bargaining power as the cheapest rag.
New graduates are not a reversible option, but a person's first job offer in life.