Overseas students attend a job fair in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, Nov 17, 2018. [Photo/IC]

Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province, is becoming an increasingly popular destination for talents, as the first half of this year has shown. More people are deciding to stay in the city to pursue their professional career rather than leave.

The net inflow of middle and high-end talents in Hangzhou was about 8.82 percent during the second quarter of 2018 to this year, dwarfing all other cities, according to a report by Liepin, China's leading job recruitment site.

The report also showed that Hangzhou ranked fifth in terms of average monthly salary at 17,503 yuan ($2,539), following closely behind the traditional first tier cities Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

The financial industry has the highest monthly income at 20,172 yuan, the only industry with a monthly salary exceeding 20,000 yuan, followed by the internet and real estate sectors.

Earlier in May, Hangzhou rolled out a new wave of talent policies, stipulating that students with full-time university degrees (including higher vocational education) and under 35 years old can apply for settlement in Hangzhou after being employed and paying social insurance.

Internet, real estate, finance, consumer goods and machine manufacturing are the five sectors with the highest demand for talents, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the number of talents heading for Suzhou, Tianjin, Dongguan, Qingdao and Shenyang, which are recognized as China's emerging first-tier cities, all decreased.