Abstract: Higher vocational college graduates are high-skilled people in the human resources market, whose human capital value performs a positive role in promoting the economic development and social progress of small and medium-sized cities. Taking Huaian City, Jiangsu Province as an example, this study empirically analyzes the local employment intention and relevant influencing factors of higher vocational college students in Huaian through questionnaire survey and logistic regression model, in the meantime, in view of the factors of individual, family, economy, society and industry that hinder the local employment intention of higher vocational college students, it proposes corresponding strategies, including: including driving the local employment of higher vocational college students through leading industries, enhancing the attractiveness of local employment; improving the social environment and optimizing the policy to attract highly skilled talents; and strengthening the promotion and implementation of talent policy to enhance the attraction to high-skilled talents through the collaboration among government, colleges and enterprises.

Key words: Small and medium-sized cities, Higher vocational college students, Local employment, Employment intention, Influencing factors, Empirical analysis