Jobs at State-owned enterprises are the most favored by Chinese university graduates in 2014, a new report said.

Thirty-five percent of university students consider SOEs the best employers, according to the report released on Friday by ChinaHR.com, an employment service provider.

The report was compiled from 48,632 online questionnaires. An additional 7,646 incomplete or otherwise-lacking questionnaires were discounted.

Seventy-three percent of the questionnaires were filled in by college students and the rest by graduates. The study began in February and lasted for more than five months.

The data showed that State-owned companies are favored over private enterprises, government and multinational companies because of their stability and clear career development path.

Multinationals were once favored by university graduates, but since the global economic crisis and the rise of China's economy, SOEs gradually replaced them.

ChinaHR has conducted the annual report on university graduates' favored employers since 2002, and SOEs have ranked as No 1 since 2009.