Recruiting in China

YINCHUAN (CHINA): Yong Wu, 40, heads a foreign invested factory that produces over a million tyres a year, most of which is sold worldwide. He is in charge of 3,000 workers toiling in three assembly lines.

Yong draws a salary of 6,000 yuan or Rs 30,000 a month. A third of his income goes towards mortgage on his house in Yinchuan, capital of the remote Ningxia province in west China. Zou Guanghui, his deputy, runs one of the assembly lines with 916 workers. Zou earns 4,000 yuan or Rs 20,000.

Yong and Zou are among the hundreds of low-profile wonder boys - as foreign investors sometimes describe them - who have become the darlings of these investors. These reliable managers are one of the many reasons why there is an almost endless flow of foreign investment into China's manufacturing sector.

Most of them earn about 20% of the salaries claimed by expat managers. And usually do not have sophisticated management degrees. But they exhibit an ability to efficiently manage vast armies of workmen.

Recent years have witnessed a huge growth in the number of Chinese managers being employed by foreign companies, who used to mostly rely on expatriate managers till the mid-90s.