Recruiting in China

ENGINEERING, once a highly rated job in China, has lost its appeal for young Chinese, Xu Kuangdi, the ex-mayor of Shanghai and President of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said yesterday.

Xu said this in his opening remarks to a forum in Shanghai to promote the reform and development of engineering education in China.

"The profession of an engineer is far less reputable today than it was in the 1950s," said Xu, who was the city mayor from 1995 to 2001.

He said most Chinese university students now hoped to make a lot of money by working for banks or scrambling to become Masters of Business Administration.

Xu said the hardships involved in becoming an engineer has also led to the decline - people who wanted to be engineers had to begin in workshops instead of sitting in offices.

Engineering has a special status in China where many of its leaders have had a background in engineering.

However the number of qualified engineers is failing to meet the demands of the country's rapid economic growth.

According to a 2004 statistic, engineers only accounted for four percent of the overall staff in Chinese businesses.