Recruiting in China

http://au.biz.yahoo.com/060220/18/jtei.html

Monday February 20, 2006, 5:14 pm

CHINA WATCH: Cheaper, Better Managers Sought Abroad

By Jane Lanhee Lee Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

SHANGHAI (Dow Jones)--Tired of the revolving door of Chinese managers and the rising salary with each new hire, Paul Stepanek decided it was time to find cheaper talent elsewhere. So he went to India.

For roughly the same salary as his previous Chinese quality assurance manager, Stepanek recruited 32-year-old Indian engineer Sandeep Sharma, who speaks English and has about a decade of experience.

"We've had a new manager every year for the past seven years. When you lose a manager...you lose all the history that you've had and all the training that's gone into it," Stepanek said. His company, USActive, helps U.S. firms source metal and plastic machine parts in China and helps manage their factories, including that of Milwaukee-based manufacturer Jason Inc. (JAS.XX), where Sharma works.

As foreign companies like Jason set up Chinese factories in droves, there is an increasing shortage of competent managers capable of dealing with foreign clients. With English-language skills more important than a mastery of Chinese, companies are recruiting from India and the Philippines - a trend that is expected to get bigger before, eventually, enough local Chinese are trained by multinational companies in English and other skills to begin filling the gap.

"Anybody in Shanghai can go out and look for a job tomorrow and get a job that's going to pay 20% to 100% more than their current salary, because there are so many companies that are coming into China every week, every month," said Stepanek, an American who speaks fluent mandarin Chinese and has lived and worked in Taiwan and China for 18 years.

Over the next decade or 15 years, China will need 75,000 executive level managers who can work both in China and in a global setting - compared with an estimated 3,000-5,000 now, says Andrew Grant, who last year published a report, "China's Looming Talent Shortage."

Grant is a director and leads the Greater China practice of global consulting firm McKinsey & Company (MCK.XX).

"A lot of people had the somewhat superficial assumption that China's a very large place with lots and lots of people. Therefore the notion that there is a talent shortage in any way, must just be a misnomer," said Grant. "But now they are taking the challenge seriously."

(www.dacare-group.com)