Recruiting in China

Professional networking site LinkedIn Corp appears to be making preparations to start operations in China, the country with the world's largest Internet population.

The California-based firm has made some major moves recently that have been seen as steps towards officially expanding its service into China. The company announcedit has hired Derek Shen, founder of Nuomi.com, a Chinese website similar to Groupon, to head its Chinese operations. It also started to integrate with China's popular mobile messaging app WeChat weeks ago.

"We believe LinkedIn is uniquely positioned to penetrate the Chinese market and could serve as one of the few sites to have a meaningful presence in both the People's Republic of China and many Western markets," said Blake Harper, an analyst with Wunderlich Securities.

Harper expects the company's expansion into China to move slowly and methodically.

"We expect the company to continue to take it slow with its Chinese development efforts and any impact to the member or corporate customer base is likely longer term," he said.

Founded in 2003, LinkedIn has grown to be the world's largest professional network on the Internet with more than 200 million members. While LinkedIn has no Chinese-language site yet, it does have 4 million registered users from the country.

China is home to 618 million Internet users and 500 million mobile web users as of the end of last year. However, China is proving to be a tough nut to crack for some of the world's biggest web players.

"eBay, Yahoo!, and Google have essentially failed in China and Amazon is facing stiff competition as the Chinese appear to have a preference for local, home based companies," said Victor Anthony, an analyst with Topeka Capital Markets.

LinkedIn would be entering a market as similar local websites are racing to take advantage of the heated job-recruitment market. For instance, 51job.com, China's leading online recruitment company, claimed it had more than 73 million registered users in 2013. Other popular Chinese recruiting agencies including zhaopin.com and chinahr.com also hold a significant share of the market.

Will LinkedIn be the one that succeeds? Anthony said that remains to be seen and much depends on whether or not a Chinese upstart enters the market with a similar and compelling offering.

"My understating is that there aren't any compelling offerings in China today," he said. "In that case, if past trends are consistent, then LinkedIn may face a similar difficult hurdle as its US Internet counterparts before it. If no one comes along with a serious and compelling offering, then LinkedIn has a strong chance of succeeding."

Anthony said based on what he has seen over the past 12 years following the Internet media space and watching US based Internet companies enter China, he does believe that competition will follow LinkedIn.

"LinkedIn's hurdle is to convince Chinese citizens - and the Chinese government - that it offers a premium solution in the professional development and recruitment space and that it is not just another US company asking Chinese citizens and corporations to open up their wallets," Anthony said. "A healthy relationship with the Chinese government would also of course help."

A special recruitment event for female university students will be held in Beijing from March 7th to 9th. No male-relevant content will be presented in the recruitment information. This event is all about women.

During the second session of the 14th Beijing Municipal People's Congress held in January this year, Tan Lin, member of the Secretariat of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) and delegate of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress, said that 51.4% of Chinese university students are female and nearly half of all masters and PhD students are female. However, female students face a far more difficult job-searching environment than men. "A lot of employers do not even look at female applicants' resumes but simply tell them the position has been filled," according to a survey conducted by ACWF.

This is the primary reason why the Beijing Student Career Center and the Beijing Women's Federation have decided to hold this special event specifically for female students only. Gender discrimination in the workplace is a serious issue and should be addressed with effective and pragmatic methods.

In a memo to employees, Hubert Joly said Best Buy International, including China, remains critical to the company’s future.

Best Buy Co. Inc. CEO Hubert Joly suggested Friday that the company will stay put in China despite speculation on Wall Street that it will eventually sell off its operations in the world’s most populous country.

In an internal memo that announced international President Shari Ballard also will lead human resources, Joly said the company remained committed to its foreign businesses, which includes China, Mexico and Canada.

“Our international businesses are a significant part of our company, and leadership of those businesses remains critical,” Joly wrote.

In some ways, Joly’s memo is his strongest endorsement of China yet. Since joining Best Buy last fall, Joly has conveyed skepticism toward the company’s struggling international operations. The chief executive has devoted most of the company’s resources toward stabilizing its core U.S. retail business, which generates most of its $50 billion in annual revenue.

Last April, Best Buy agreed to sell its 50 percent stake in Best Buy Europe to joint venture partner Carphone Warehouse for $775 million in cash and stock. Analysts suspected Best Buy also would divest its Five Star business, a local electronics chain that Best Buy acquired in China a few years ago. The business has struggled of late, due to a slowing economy and the end of China’s stimulus program.

At the same time, however, China still holds considerable opportunity. The country has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest smartphone market. Of the top five smartphone vendors in the world, two — Huawei and ZTE — are Chinese firms selling smartphones mostly in their home country.

With Five Star, Best Buy seems uniquely positioned to benefit from this growth. Although the company has shut down its big-box stores in China, Best Buy has continued to open Five Star stores and is testing a Best Buy Mobile store-within-a-store concept in some Five Star locations.

“Shari and I recently traveled to China and Canada, meeting with the new business leaders there and spending time in our stores,” Joly wrote in his memo to employees. “I am encouraged by the progress we are making and look forward to continuing to work closely with Shari and our country leaders.”

In May, Best Buy named Meng “Max” Zhou, a longtime retail executive in Asia, as its new China CEO. Still, Wall Street continues to doubt Best Buy’s future in that country with some analysts speculating that the company hired Zhou as a type of caretaker to prepare Five Star for a sale.

Of China and Canada, it makes more sense for Best Buy to stay in the latter, said David Strasser, a retail analyst with Janney Capital Management. Canada’s stores are profitable, and many of Joly’s strategies toward fixing U.S. retail can also apply north of the border, he said.

“Canada was always going to be a part of Best Buy,” Strasser said. “It’s a legitimate and good part of the business.”

China, however, is a different animal, Strasser said. The country has not yet generated the necessary returns to justify Best Buy’s continued presence there, he said.

“I still believe China is a question mark,” Strasser said. “Over time, China will either work itself out or it won’t.”

Joly, though, seems like he wants to remain in China — at least for the immediate future. Earlier this summer, Joly visited China and Canada, Best Buy spokesman Matt Furman said.

“He is personally engaged in our international business,” Furman said.

In the memo, Joly revealed that Carol Surface, the current HR chief, is leaving Best Buy to join an undisclosed Minnesota company. Joly also sought to refute the idea that appointing Ballard to run human resources would somehow detract from her duties as international chief.

“To be clear, Shari also remains responsible for our international business,” Joly said. “The addition of HR to Shari’s responsibilities does not, in any way, diminish what is expected of her as President, International.”

That might seem a lot of work for one executive but it fits Joly’s preference for a lean, efficient management structure. For example, Chief Financial Officer Sharon McCollam also is chief administrative officer charged with revamping Best Buy’s supply chain operations and real estate portfolio.

In addition, the sale of Best Buy Europe and the appointment of Zhou will help ease the burden on Ballard, a company veteran who formerly led human resources and served as co-head of North American retail.

“I think she is competent, a good executive,” Strasser said.

Social media cater to public demand for concise, customized information

Lu Jiuping starts working at 4 am every day, but the retired 50-year-old businessman has never made a cent from his current occupation.

He starts his day by reading several financial websites, picking out valuable bits of business or IT news.

Not satisfied to digest the information alone, he posts these news items on "Tearoom 90", an official account he registered on WeChat, a popular mobile social networking platform developed by Chinese IT giant Tencent.

Since it was set up in February, Lu's free subscriber service has attracted a readership of more than 14,000, quickly turning it from a "tearoom" to a "newsroom", much to the delight of the amateur media strategist.

"I am working as the chief editor of an e-magazine," Lu said.

The Official Account is one built-in WeChat function that offers broadcast messaging. Operators of each account can share anything in any format with their subscribers and receive instant feedback.

According to Tencent's website, the platform was originally created for big brands, such as airlines, banks and celebrities, but it has unexpectedly struck a chord with the public and citizen reporters, like Lu, who are taking advantage of the platform to develop specialized storytelling styles.

In the past few years, Sina Weibo, China's most popular Twitter-like service, has exploded in popularity. Millions of Weibo users use the service to speak their mind.

Platforms such as Sina Weibo and WeChat are changing the way media work, with netizens now discovering and discussing social events online.

However, spam and misinformation have grabbed onto the coattails of the service, and people are getting tired of irrelevant or boring micro blogs that pop up on their screens all day.

Lyu Xin, dean of the New Media Department of Animation and Digital Arts School at Communication University of China, described this as the "parabola" of social media development.

He said that the rise of micro-blogging inspired people from all walks of life to voice their opinions on social issues, breaking down traditional media's long-held domination over the spread of information and speeding up information transmission.

As they become increasingly immersed in social media, however, users find that it gets "boring" to sift through massive amounts of irrelevant information to find news that interests them. Instead, they prefer to spend their time perusing concise and well-organized information delivered to them directly.

"The parabola has reached its peak, and it will go down," said Lyu, "but people's demand for social media will go up."

The professor attributed the popularity of WeChat to the platform's ability to push content that meets public demand.

"In the social media age, no dish suits all tastes. People need more information to serve their personal interests. The Official Account on WeChat provides a venue for both institutions and individuals to publish their personal information," one blogger wrote.

Lu's case helps to illustrate that point.

He describes his "Tearoom 90" as a professional business magazine. "My target customers are industry insiders, and those gossip girls or boys have little interest in following."

The customized information helps to attract people with shared interests to subscribe, but subscriber-only content, which only subscribers can read or comment on, could be used to broadcast false information.

Many national newspapers, magazines and websites have also landed in the platform.

In April, China Central Television, a State-owned broadcaster, launched its official WeChat account "CCTV News" to spread news reports and photos, as well as receive reader comments.

Government departments have also opened accounts for hearing opinions from the public. According to a report released in May by Tsinghua University, the number of government accounts on WeChat has reached 1,000 across China.

Saongroup, the online recruiter majority owned by Denis O’Brien, has acquired Monster’s China operation, ChinaHR.com, for an undisclosed amount.

Monster Worldwide will retain a ten per cent shareholding in the combined China business of Saongroup and the agreement takes place with immediate effect. Monster had previously announced its intention to divest its operation in China.

Saongroup already has a comprehensive national network of offices and websites in tier two, three and four cities throughout China and the addition of ChinaHR boosts this network to almost 200 cities across the country, whilst also giving it a strong presence in the tier one cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

“ChinaHR is an excellent match with Saongroup China. Its blue chip client list and strong tier one city presence complements Saongroup’s robust online platform and pan-China reach. The acquisition of ChinaHR repositions Saongroup as a market leader and leaves us well positioned to accelerate our growth in the Chinese market.” said Ciaran McCooey, group chief executive officer of Saongroup.

Saongroup.com is a global online recruitment company with operations across four continents – Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas – and websites live in 30 countries. Irishjobs.ie is its domestic trading entity.

Saongroup is 75 per cent owned by Mr O’Brien, with chairman Leslie Buckley owning the balance.

Summary: Monster Worldwide's China unit is starting to shed 54 percent of its 400 workers, and remaining employees organize a sit-in office protest to demand for compensation should they be laid off this year.

Chinese recruitment site ChinaHR.com, a subsidiary of Monster Worldwide, has started laying off 54 percent of its 400 staff members amid discussions of the company being sold.

According to Sina Tech Wednesday, the dismissed staff were compensated three months' salary plus additional amounts depending on the time they have spent with the company. For example, an employee who has been with ChinaHR.com for five years will get an additional five months' worth of his salary. Pregnant staff members will receive an extra 24 months' salary, it added.

The layoffs come amid reports in November 2012 that Monster Worldwide will sell off its Chinese business unit, which it fully acquired in 2008, as part of its restructuring program to curb losses of US$130 billion. The acquiring company has not been disclosed though.

However, employees who did not get laid off were unsatisfied as they were not included in the compensation scheme. They were also disgruntled that ChinaHR CEO Luo Bingquan did not want to reveal details of the buyout, citing confidentiality, it reported.

On Tuesday night, more than 200 employees organized a sit-in protest in ChinaHR's headquarters in Beijing.

After 10 hours of negotiation, both Luo and Monster Chairman Sal Iannuzzi proposed the remaining staff be compensated with the same plan if they are to be laid off in 2013 following ChinaHR's acquisition, Sina Tech reported.

The proposal is subject to the approval from the unnamed buyer of the Web company, it added.

Apple has stuck to its word and begun to cut ties with Chinese suppliers who are found to employ underage workers.

Apple last year joined forces with the Fair Labor Association (FLA) after a report from the organisation found evidence of the practise at some of Apple’s suppliers.

Now the company has released its Supplier Responsibility Progress Report, in which it was revealed that Apple has cut ties with Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics (PZ) after 74 violations were discovered.

Staffing firm Shenzhen Quanshun Human Resources, which supplied workers to PZ, reportedly went as far as to aid families to produce fake age documentation. 106 active cases were revealed.

Interestingly, notorious employer Foxconn “is on track to meet the FLA's recommendations by July 1st”, The Verge reports.

In fact, Apple CEO Tim Cook has made a point of stressing that improved labour practices are a key priority for Apple – a notable change from the seemingly opposite policy employed by his predecessor (and Buddhist!) Steve Jobs.

The company performed 393 labour audits in 2012 – that’s a 72 per cent increase over 2011.

According to Antal China, the oil and gas sector is about to experience significant growth thanks to the growth of the Chinese economy. The company state that since 2011, the two China oil giants CNPC and Sinopec, have been pushing the wholesale prices down at a minimum, while increasing the prices of the retailed refined oil, thereby delivering high profits. However this year, at a time when the price difference between retailed and wholesaled oil has reached RMB 300/ton, foreign and private retail stations are facing a serious lack of oil source. For this reason some oil companies are now setting up their own depot – a move which has been recorded and supported by recruiting firm Antal China. In part, these new ventures ensure the companies retain enough oil reserve, but they also help companies to respond to price fluctuation which remain a clear feature of the Chinese market.

Antal have also perceived that deep-sea oil and gas field Exploration and Production (E&P) is becoming a greater focus in the region. However, this area of business requires higher quality of equipment, technology and talent. There are clearly new opportunities here for foreign companies who wish to supply this kind of technology to the region and alongside this there will be a higher demand for skilled personnel in deep sea development, project management, sales and application.

Antal have already been working in this area, recruiting for a foreign company who specialise in high-end sub-sea products. The company concerned set up a new office in Shenzhen in order to supply the deep-sea E&P development.

The Global Recruiter Magazine, the principal magazine for the global recruitment industry together with the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo), are pleased to announce our second Asia Pacific Recruitment Summit.

The event will bring together the industry in and around Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, Japan and the other main Asia Pacific jurisdictions.

With the world’s major industries and companies concentrating their efforts in the Asian Pacific hubs, the recruitment industry has seen dramatic growth. However, recruitment-specific data and events are a rarity, with conferences and expos leaning towards the corporate/HR end of the market.

The Global Recruiter magazine, together with the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo), have filled this void.

Held in Singapore in October 2013, our Summit will include a two day-long conference, with presentations from world leaders in global recruitment knowledge focusing on many different issues to help you grow your recruitment brand in the region. The two days will culminate in a lavish gala awards ceremony with the region’s staffing sector coming together to celebrate their achievements.

The 2012 Asia Pacific Summit provided the recruitment industry with an invigorating diverse informative and invaluable event where inspiring new ideas and refreshed enthusiasm were found. The conference programmes plenary sessions, masterclasses and tracks provided delegates real-life practical solutions to help transform their organisations and add value to their brand. Alongside the conference the exhibition provided tailored advice and solutions from leading recruitment industry suppliers, specific to the business challenges faced in the Asia Pacific region. The Summit climaxed with a glittering Gala dinner and awards ceremony, where 13 companies were recognised for their outstanding achievements in the Asia Pacific region.

The 2013 Summit will be a must attend for those serious about business in the Asia Pacific region. We fully expect the 2013 Summit to even further demonstrate the high standards of Recruitment in Asia Pacific , which, through this Summit, will only become more globally renowned.

The war for talent in China has led Nike Sports to introduce the Lumese TalentLink technology platform on which to base its recruitment strategy for the country. In the first phase of the initiative 11 recruiters in Greater China and over 15 agencies will work with a complete Software as a Service system which will enhance the screening and selection process as well as creating a standardised workflow for the task ahead. The company hope this will bring transparency and a high level of reporting to the process which will benefit recruitment across the Asia region.

"Demand for the best candidates, which far exceeds supply, is becoming a serious problem in recruitment management in China," said Rishi Dadlani, Nike’s Talent Acquisition Sourcing Manager in Greater China. "Our recruiting processes have been working well in recent years, but now with aggressive market growth plans in place, our recruiters absolutely need to deal with and manage a higher and more effective workload.

While supporting the company’s overall objectives in the region Nike hopes to bring some of it brand strength to talent acquisition work. They also intend to connect Lumesse TalentLink to Nike external and internal career sites for a much better and richer candidate experience in the direct application process.

"This is a perfect example of our philosophy of being the only global company making talent management work locally," said Lumesse CEO, Matthew Parker. "China is an absolutely unique market today, with a high growth economy, a shortage of skilled talent, and very specific requirements for languages and local support."

"While job-boards is certainly a channel that has been around for a long time, we don't particularly focus on it. We have an excellent toolkit, coupled with the strength of our consumer brand, and our dream is to convert all our consumers into potential candidates," said Rishi Dadlani. "There are a number of social media platforms/networks we will certainly leverage to market our employment brand. Through these channels we will build and engage talent communities and eventually stimulate direct applications."

Open recruitment has been carried out in most Chinese public institutions as a method of filling posts, a government spokesman said on Friday.

The process of boosting open recruitment in government-sponsored institutions began in 2006, said Yin Chengji, spokesman for the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

Public institutions, including schools, research institutions, hospitals and publishing houses, are the backbone of China's public service system.

Yin said the ministry has also been working to standardize the way posts are managed, with 145 out of 157 public institutions under the central government having standardized such management.

The ministry will make more efforts to enhance and standardize open recruiting this year, as well as inspect recruitment efforts in public institutions in cooperation with the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Yin said.

In addition, the ministry is considering creating regulations to encourage open recruitment in different sectors.

Air pollution in China is driving away foreign talent from some key cities, including the capital city of Beijing, and making it harder for multinational firms to persuade their employees to relocate there, hiring managers said.

“They are not familiar with the place and the country, so the heavy pollution is an important factor for them to consider,” said a senior executive at Antal International Germany in an e-mail interview. Antal International is a global recruitment firm working with multinational companies. The services offered by its German office includes recruiting foreign executives to work in China for large carmakers such as BMW, Audi and Volkswagen.

“Air pollution is becoming a real issue among expats working with Audi and BMW. A senior lawyer has asked to be transferred out of the area very recently,” said Richard Adam, a managing partner at Antal International Germany who regularly hires western talents to work in Asia.

The difficulty of finding people to fill in positions in Chinese cities, on a scale of 1 to 10, was rated as 6, by Adam.

And while there seems to be few concerns expressed when it come recruiting westerners to the Shanghai, China’s financial hub, 60 per cent of those negotiating the possibility of working in Beijing and other Chinese industrial cities mentioned air pollution or health issues as a one of their top concerns, according to Adam.

“Life balance and health is getting more important and people take environmental issues into consideration. Nobody is going to ruin his or her health when there are job alternatives under better conditions. When people can choose, they take what is good for them, and money cannot compensate for health,” he said.

Sending someone from a “better” place to a less attractive one with a lower quality of life does not necessarily mean the person will get monetary compensation as the cost of living might be cheaper, said Adam. Yet after what happened to Beijing recently, the situation “might change”, he added.

On Saturday, a Beijing air pollution index measuring particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometres (PM2.5) hit levels as high as 400 in some areas of the city. A level above 300 is considered hazardous, while the World Health Organisation recommends a daily level of no more than 25.

Foreigners who work in “obviously polluted areas” could expect to be paid 5 to 12 per cent more than those working in a comparable position in places with a better environment, Adam said.

While international firms may have to pay more to attract foreigners to locate in China, Chinese candidates, however, said pollution and environmental issues were not a key concern when relocating to Beijing from other inland cities.

The opportunities, salary level, and exciting working environment of a first-tier city usually outweigh the inconvenience of poor air quality for Chinese employees, according to Antal International China.

Job seeking website Seek has increased its share in Chinese employment site Zhaopin. The company’s equity interest will increase from 55.5% to between 72.3% and 79%.

The announcement:

SEEK Limited (“SEEK”) today announced it has entered into a share purchase agreement to increase its ownership stake in Zhaopin Limited (“Zhaopin”).

Zhaopin operates a leading online employment marketplace in China and this transaction is part of SEEK’s continued strategy to increase its exposure to leading international businesses. SEEK’s equity interest will increase from 55.5% to between 72.3% and c79% depending on the level of take up from certain shareholders.

Jason Lenga, Managing Director of SEEK International and Director of Zhaopin, said “Zhaopin is a leading player in many of China’s geographic regions and across several key online operating metrics. As China’s urbanisation and internet penetration increases, we expect it will be the world’s largest online employment marketplace.”

When comparing the 2012 financial year to 2011, Zhaopin’s financial performance has been strong, recording revenue growth of 28% and EBITDA growth of 70% (FY12 v FY11).

Zhaopin’s local management team has performed well in achieving these results and leading a highly successful business. SEEK fully support the local team’s ability to lead the way going forward.

Mr Lenga said, “Despite a recent slowdown in China’s economic conditions, Zhaopin’s team has demonstrated a deep understanding of local conditions and their needs. The business will continue to invest appropriately to drive Zhaopin’s growth and focus on leading the company to a potential IPO.”

“This transaction is an important step in expanding SEEK’s exposure in key international markets as well as a compelling growth opportunity for SEEK’s shareholders.”

SEEK’s equity interest in Zhaopin will depend on the take up levels from other shareholders based on SEEK’s offer to acquire additional shares. However, it is expected that SEEK will increase its current interests from 55.5% to 72.3% to c79%. There is a provision that SEEK may acquire further ownership interests in Zhaopin in FY14.

The acquisition will take place via a sell down of shares from Macquarie and other individual shareholders.

From 1 July 2013, the use of labour dispatch services will likely be a less attractive means of maintaining a more flexible workforce. Companies taking dispatched employees will need to comply with an “equal pay for equal work” principle, and the range of positions for which they can engage dispatched workers will be limited. The registered capital requirement for labour dispatch service providers will also be increased four-fold. Forward planning for both labour dispatch services providers and companies that use dispatched employees is recommended.

Changes to China’s labour dispatch rules were enacted on 28 December 2012 by way of amendments to China’s Labour Contract Law. The amendments will be effective from 1 July 2013. For comment on the draft amendments that were circulated for public comment in mid-2012, please see our July 2012 e-bulletin.

Background

Labour dispatch practices involve a business choosing to outsource workers from third-party dispatch agencies rather than directly employing the workers. This can result in cost-savings and make it easier to terminate the relationship with the worker.

New provisions

The Labour Contract Law amendments introduce a number of changes, some of which are consistent with those in the draft amendment circulated in mid-2012. The first four changes listed below were not in the mid-2012 draft, while the remainder of the changes noted below are substantially the same as those in the mid-2012 draft:

• The registered capital of a labour dispatch company must be at least RMB2,000,000. This represents a four-fold increase from the current requirement of RMB500,000. Companies currently providing such services will need to increase their registered capital in order to provide further labour dispatch services.

• A labour dispatch company must have permanent business premises and facilities that are suitable for the conduct of their business. While it is unclear exactly what this will mean in practice, any existing dispatch service provider would be wise to carefully review the new requirements before renewing their leases.

• Employment by labour dispatch is only a supplemental form of employment for Chinese enterprises, with directemployment by labour contract being the basic form of employment. Identifying labour dispatch as supplementary is aimed at preventing the overuse of labour dispatch.

• The number of dispatched employees engaged by an employer may not exceed a certain percentage of its total number of employees. The exact percentage, however, is yet to be stipulated by the labour administrative authority under the State Council.

• To engage in labour dispatch, a labour dispatch company must obtain a permit from the relevant labour bureau. Labour dispatch permits had been explicitly required prior to 2008. However, when the PRC Labour Contract Law came into effect in 2008 it did not include a permit requirement. Under the new rules, a labour dispatch company established before 1 July 2013 will clearly be required to obtain a labour dispatch permit by 1 July 2014 in order to take up new labour dispatch business. Such labour dispatch companies will need to ensure that their registered capital and business premises comply with the new requirements.

• Workers can be dispatched only for “temporary, auxiliary or substitute positions”. Temporary positions cannot be for longer than six months; auxiliary positions are those that support the main business line; and substitute positions are for covering employees on vacations or study leave. The current rules, by contrast, are generally taken to permit long-term dispatch relationships in a wide variety of positions. This amendment emphasizes the supplemental nature of labour dispatch and is aimed at preventing labour dispatch from being a substitute for direct employment.

• The amendments require equal pay for equal work; that is, the same remuneration standard should apply to both dispatched employees and directly hired employees. Any existing labour contracts and labour dispatch agreements that are inconsistent with the "equal pay for equal work" requirement will need to be amended.

• Employers and dispatch agencies violating the law may be fined between RMB5,000 and RMB10,000 per dispatched worker if they fail to correct the violations within the time period specified by the relevant labour bureau.

Under the new rules, employers that have been relying on dispatched workers might be required to directly employ more workers. This would increase payrolls, and make future down-sizing more difficult and more expensive.

In September, the largest factory in the northeastern Chinese coastal city of Yantai called on the local government with a problem – a shortage of 19,000 workers as the deadline on a big order approached.

Yantai officials came to the rescue, ordering vocational high schools to send students to the plant run by Foxconn Technology Group, a Taiwanese maker of smartphones, computers and gaming equipment.

As firms like Foxconn shift factories away from higher-cost centres in the Pearl River Delta in southern Guangdong province, they are discovering that workers in new locations across China are not as abundant as they had expected.

That has prompted multinationals and their suppliers to use millions of teenage students from vocational and technical schools on assembly lines. The schools teach a variety of trades and include mandatory work experience, which in practice means students must accept work assignments to graduate.

In any given year, at least 8 million vocational students man China’s assembly lines and workshops, according to Ministry of Education estimates – or one in eight Chinese aged 16 to 18. In 2010, the ministry ordered vocational schools to fill any shortages in the work force. The minimum legal working age is 16.

Foxconn, the trading name of Hon Hai Precision Industry, employs 1.2 million workers across China. Nearly 3 per cent are student interns.

The company “has a huge appetite for workers,” Wang Weihui, vice-director of the Yantai Fushan Polytechnic School, told Reuters during a recent visit to the city.

“It tightens the labour market,” said Mr. Wang, whose school sends its students to work at Foxconn and other firms.

Local governments eager to please new investors lean on schools to meet any worker shortfall. That’s what Yantai, in Shandong province, did in September when Foxconn had trouble filling Christmas orders for Nintendo Co. Ltd. Wii game consoles.

“It has been easier to recruit workers in the Pearl River Delta than some inland locations,” Foxconn told Reuters in written comments in late December.

Some companies cite rising wages in southern China for the shift elsewhere. Wages are a growing component of manufacturing costs in China, making up to 30 per cent of the total depending on the industry, according to the Boston Consulting Group.

Wages began to rise around 2006 as the migration of rural workers to Guangdong ebbed. China’s one-child policy, plus a jump in higher education enrolment, further depleted the number of new entrants to the work force, forcing up wages.

That prompted American car makers, Korean electronics manufacturers and private Chinese firms to look for new sites. Cheaper electricity, land and tax incentives as well as a growing consumer class in regions beyond the booming southern coastal provinces were other reasons to relocate.

Minimum wages in Yantai can be as low as 1,100 yuan ($180 U.S.) a month compared to 1,500 yuan in Shenzhen, a city near Hong Kong.

What makes vocational students attractive is they can be paid less than full-time workers, although some firms – including Foxconn – pay the same base wages.

Even if they pay the same base salary, employers can save 10 to 40 per cent per person because legally they do not have to pay health insurance or social security benefits for student interns.

Yantai was not the only local government to help Foxconn.

Two months earlier, Foxconn’s 100,000-worker factory near the city of Zhengzhou in Henan Province was racing to meet a deadline for Apple Inc.’s iPhone 5.

Henan authorities told its cities to find 30,000 more workers for Foxconn, according to a Zhengzhou city government notice reprinted by the Hong Kong-based labour rights group, Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour, or SACOM.

Yantai shows how much China’s labour market has changed.

Zhang Weifang, head of human resources at the Yantai factory of LG Innotek estimates the city’s employable 16- to 18-year-olds has halved since her firm began production in 2004. LG Innotek is the components unit of South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc.

“It’s really hard to find people nowadays,” she said.

About 2,400 young workers staff Mr. Zhang’s factory, of which one-third are vocational students or workers contracted through agencies.

Students are sought after by plants which need extra workers during peak production periods, especially since China’s 2008 Labour Law makes firing employees cumbersome.

And students are plentiful. Vocational school graduation has surged 26 per cent in the past five years, to 6.6 million students in 2011. Parents whose children cannot compete in China’s exam-driven high schools look to vocational schools.

Such students made up such a large percentage of a Honda Motor Co. Ltd. plant in southern China that, when they went on strike for better pay in 2010, crippled Honda’s production chain. A Honda spokeswoman said the ratio of students to regular employees had significantly declined, but would not give a figure.

About 2.7 per cent of Foxconn’s workforce in China comprises vocational students, the company said in October. That works out to 32,400 teenagers.

“This program gives Foxconn an opportunity to identify participants who have the potential to be excellent full-time employees should they wish to join our company upon graduation,” Foxconn said in a statement at the time.

That month, Chinese state media said 56 minors under the legal working age were among students sent to work at Foxconn in Yantai. Foxconn removed the underage students from the plant after the reports.

Chinese law limits students to eight hours of work a day, with no night shifts. Vocational students in Yantai told Reuters they had worked up to 12 hours a day, and routinely did night shifts at Chinese and foreign-invested factories.

Foxconn has a program with Apple, one of its main customers, to pay interns the same wages as other workers, limit their work to eight hours a day, five days a week and allow them to quit if they want.

More than a dozen students interviewed by Reuters in Yantai had a mixed view of their internships, ranging from relatively positive to outraged. Many said it taught them to look for something other than assembly line work after graduation.

Most three-year vocational programs require a two-month internship in the second year, while the third is spent entirely at work. Even though students know they need factory experience to graduate, the assembly line comes as a shock to some.

“At the beginning I was really excited. I thought I could get experience and help out my family with some money,” said Yu, 17, an intern in Yantai. She asked that her full name not be used.

“To suddenly encounter 12-hour work shifts, standing, with only 40 minutes to rest and eat, our legs can’t stand it.”

Some students said they hoped the work would improve their prospects.

“Electronics is our major and so this will help in finding jobs,” said vocational student Sun Chuangjiao, a former Foxconn intern.

Companies defend the internships as educational as well as a useful recruitment strategy.

“The vast majority of our interns and the schools that sponsor them find their experience with us relevant and meaningful, and an important first step in their career development,” Emerson Electronic told Reuters.

It employs 40 interns for eight-month stints, out of a work force of 1,063 at its air conditioner compressor plant in the Yangtze Delta city of Suzhou. All are over 18, it said.

The shortage of labour means companies often search far and wide for vocational schools to supply workers.

Mr. Zhang of LG Innotek said she had contacted schools across China to find interns while Mok Jangkyun, an auditor with Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., told Reuters he drove a full day after flying to Guizhou province in southwest China to vet a vocational school sending interns to its supplier factories.

Samsung did an audit of factories after activists found underage workers with fake IDs at one of the electronics giant’s 250 supplier factories in China. The South Korean company said it did not find underage workers at any of its suppliers.

Supplying vocational students can be lucrative.

Some students in Yantai said their school took 500 yuan from their monthly wage. Their school declined an interview request.

Some companies pay teachers directly to keep students in line in dormitories and on the factory floor, SACOM has found. In other cases, companies pay management fees or set up extra facilities at schools.

Foxconn says while it pays teachers who supervise students, it usually does not compensate schools.

“However, in some cases, we do provide compensation to meet their overall administrative costs,” it said.

Concordia announced Friday afternoon that it will end its contract with Orchard Consultants Ltd., the company used to recruit Chinese students for the university.

In September, The Link published a story examining poor homestay conditions experienced by some Chinese students recruited through Orchard.

The story prompted an internal investigation by the university of its recruiting practices, particularly with regards to recruitment in China.

The contract between Concordia and Orchard was up for negotiation, but after receiving a list of recommendations aimed at addressing the issue of questionable recruitment practices, the university has decided to issue a Request for Proposals to seek out a new recruiting company in February.

In an interview with The Link, Concordia VP Services Roger Côté said the university will aim to make the process transparent; in the interim, the agreement with Orchard will continue until Feb. 28 to allow Orchard to finalize and transfer open student applications.

In order to prevent similar issues in the future, the university said in a press release on Friday that it intends to use “a blended approach to student recruitment in China” that will combine “in-house and third-party” involvement in the process.

Côté also said that the university is looking to work with the Concordia Student Union, the Graduate Students’ Association and Concordia’s Housing and Job Bank going forward.

“What we want to do going forward is have a relationship with the students ourselves directly,” said Côté.

Changes to Chinese employment law will limit the use of agency workers by companies, as well as guaranteeing those workers the same rights as those hired directly.08 Jan 2013

An amendment to the Labor Contract Law (Chinese) will limit the use of 'labor contracting agents' by companies to "temporary, supplementary or back-up jobs". The change, which has been adopted by the National People's Congress Standing Committee, is due to take effect on 1 July 2013 according to national press agency Xinhua.

The Labor Contract Law is one of China's main sources of employment legislation. It came into force in 2008 and is administered by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. Among other provisions, the law requires employers to pay employees' health insurance and social security contributions, and includes protection for employees on probation and working overtime.

According to Xinhua, the amendment was proposed in June to prevent employers hiring long-term workers through agencies. According to Ministry figures, China had 37 million agency workers in 2011.In practice, companies can pay these workers much less than those recruited directly as they are categorised as 'dispatched employees'.

The amendment reiterates a right for agency workers, or "dispatched workers", to receive "equal pay for the same work" carried out by a company's "formal employees". Employers must "adopt the same remuneration distribution measures of its formal employees at the same position for such dispatched worker".

Employers will also be required to hire the majority of their workforce directly, rather than via contractors, and to strictly control the number of 'leased workers' they hire. The amendment also clarifies those roles that can be filled by agency workers. 'Temporary' jobs are those lasting no longer than six months, while 'back-up' jobs are those that can be taken over while permanent workers are on maternity, study or holiday leave.

The amendment also creates new administrative rules for labor contracting agencies. The minimum amount of registered capital that an agency must hold has been increased to 2 million yuan, while agencies will also be required to obtain administrative approval before they can begin arranging employment contracts.

At a press conference to introduce the changes Kan He, vice chair of the committee's legislative affairs commission, told Reuters that the changes were intended to "prevent abuse".

"The regulations control the total numbers and the proportion of workers that can be contracted through agencies and companies cannot expand either number or proportion at whim," he said. "The majority of workers at a company should be under regular labor contracts."

China amended its labor law Dec 28 to ensure that workers hired through contracting agents are offered the same conditions as full employees, a move meant to tighten a loophole used by many employers to maintain flexible staffing.

Contracting agencies have taken off since China implemented the Labor Contract Law in 2008, which stipulates employers must pay workers’ health insurance and social security benefits and also makes firing them very difficult.

WORKFORCE

“Hiring via labor contracting agents should be arranged only for temporary, supplementary and backup jobs,” the amendment reads, according to Xinhua news agency. It takes effect on July 1.

Contracted laborers now make up about a third of the workforce at many Chinese and multinational factories and in some cases account for well over half

EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES

Some foreign representative offices, all news bureaus and most embassies are required to hire Chinese staff through employment agencies, rather than directly.

In theory contracted workers should be paid the same, with benefits supplied by the agencies who are legally their direct employers.

However, in reality many contracted workers, especially in manufacturing industries and state-owned enterprises, do not enjoy benefits and are paid less.

Employment agencies have been set up by local governments, and even by companies themselves, to keep an arms-length relationship with workers.

Workers who are underpaid, fired or suffer injury often find it very difficult to pursue compensation through the agencies.

SAMSUNG SUPPLIERS

Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics said last month that it would require its 249 supplier factories in China to cap the number of temporary or contracted workers at 30 percent of regular full-time employees.

It announced the corrective measure after Chinese labor activists reported violations of overtime rules and working conditions as well as under-age workers at Samsung suppliers.

Samsung says its own audit did not find workers under China’s legal working age of 16 and therefore it had not violated any of China’s employment regulations..

Taiwan Wednesday voiced concern over "malicious talent poaching" in reaction to a report that a high-tech firm run by former Chinese president Jiang Zemin's son was aggressively recruiting staff from the island. "The flow of talent has to follow proper procedures," Economic Minister Shih Yen-hsiang, pictured in 2003, told a session of parliament.

"The flow of talent has to follow proper procedures," Economic Minister Shih Yen-hsiang told a session of parliament. "We don't approve of malicious talent poaching."

Shih made the comment after the Taiwan-based CommonWealth magazine reported that Jiang's son Jiang Mianheng was among a string of Chinese businesses going after the island's high-tech talent.

According to the biweekly magazine, tech company He Hui operated indirectly by the younger Jiang allegedly had recruited 70 people from top research institutes and firms in Taiwan to the alarm of the island's authorities.

"We hope recruitees will seriously consider the potential damage they could cause or the liabilities they could face when making any move," Shih said.

He was referring to an industrial secret protection law recently passed by parliament which imposes tougher punishment on the theft or improper usage of trade secrets.

Taipei has long taken care to protect its high-tech sectors, imposing restrictions on local firms investing in China to avoid the risk of giving the Chinese side a technological advantage.

The government in 2010 relaxed the rules on some high-tech investment in China following calls by local firms, which pointed out their competitors from South Korea and Japan had been stepping up activity there.

China still sees Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary. However, ties have improved markedly since in recent years under Taiwan's Beijing-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou.

Li Yufang didn't follow the typical path to a government job — in fact, she didn't even know it was an option until she received a call from a headhunter.

"I was very surprised," said the 35-year-old, whose resume listed work at a wholesale market, a property agency and an investment firm, all in Guangdong province.

"They told me I'd been selected for an interview for a senior position at a city government, which normally don't recruit through agencies."

Li got the job, and in October, when more than 1 million young people were preparing to take the annual civil service exam, she was settling in as deputy director of the service industry development bureau in Shengze, a town under the jurisdiction of Suzhou, Jiangsu province.

Promoting staff members to fill senior positions remains the norm among most Chinese government agencies.

The Suzhou government said it broke the mold five years ago when it began using Suzhou Industrial Park Human Resources Development Corp to identify and lure quality candidates from the private sector.

Since then, the State-owned headhunter, based in Suzhou Industrial Park, has found about 100 candidates for various government departments and filled 20 positions.

Li was one of eight recruits from the private sector to start working for the city in October.

"We cater to a diverse range of industries across the country, working to detailed requirements and limited time," said Kang Yue, general manager of Suzhou Industrial Park Human Resources Development. "Different departments in Suzhou have specific requirements and preferences for the positions, detailing the age, gender, work experience, and the length of leadership in the related industry."

Most positions that authorities list are in auditing, finance, urban planning, and science and technology, which all require professional knowledge and practical experience, he said.

"This new method brought me from Guangzhou to Suzhou to apply my skills to government tasks," said Li, who, like others recruited this way, must wait three years before they can be offered a lifetime contract.

Kang said that so far, all of his recruits have been kept on.

"We contacted the headhunting company to help with the recruitment of certain senior officials because we were unable to find people who would qualify for the positions in 2008, and because we noticed we didn't have the many resources that headhunters do," said the director of public information for the Suzhou government, who gave his name as Weng.

He added that the city would like to try the new method again soon because it was unexpectedly efficient and found excellent candidates within a short time.

According to the Suzhou information department, the city had problems finding enough applicants when it advertised open positions via traditional media.

"We don't rely completely on the headhunter — it merely helps us early in the process to locate candidates from a wider range," Weng said.

According to expert opinion, Suzhou is on the right track.

"The Suzhou government has taken an innovative step by involving the private sector in its recruiting," said Ren Yuan, a professor at Fudan University's School of Social Development and Public Policy.

More city governments should be encouraged to adopt similar modern methods to hire more experienced people in specific professional industries from society, he said.

Walt Disney Co started a recruitment campaign in China on Tuesday for its new theme park in Shanghai.

A total of 39 positions are being offered on the company's website to support the resort project in Shanghai's Pudong district.

Positions include assistant contract manager, IT infrastructure manager, and employees responsible for administrative management matters, purchasing, and engineering projects.

The resort, which is expected to open in 2015, will have a theme park, two hotels, various dining and entertainment venues, recreational facilities, a lake and transportation hubs.

The total investment is expected to reach 24.5 billion yuan ($3.84 billion) for the theme park and 4.5 billion yuan for the hotels and other facilities.

ChinaHR was up for sale by its largest shareholder Monster Worldwide Inc. (NYSE: MWW) in early November. But so far no company is willing to take over ChinaHR.

According to the company’s third quarter financial report, Monster’s operating revenue in the third quarter has significantly decreased by 10.5 percent and the company suffered a net loss of $194.2 million, of which ChinaHR contributes $233 million - partially offset by Monster’s other more lucrative holdings.

In fact, ChinaHR is not the only online recruitment company trapped in a slump in China. Data from iResearch reveals that three Chinese online recruitment giants – 51job.com, zhaopin.com and ChinaHR.com, all suffered from decreasing visitors for the first time since 2011.

The mostly homogenous services provided by online recruitment companies are losing power to attract clients with the growth of social networking websites.

According to the Global Employees Index published by Kelly Services, 80 percent of Chinese employees visit social networking websites everyday, 21 percent of which are using these networks to look for jobs.

At present, the platform gathering the most global professional talent is the business networking website LinkedIn, founded at the end of 2002 and publicly listed in 2011. Now it hosts 187 million registered users and 109 million unique visitors per month.

The LinkedIn pattern was copied by large numbers of Chinese professional networking websites after its successful IPO, including wealink.com, tianji.com, dajie.com and wolonge.com.

“Among so many professional networking websites, it’s difficult to judge who will win the appreciation of most users at the moment,” said one analyst.

It was reported that the registered users on professional networking websites have exceeded 70 million and is expected to reach 100 million in three months.

The number of Chinese professionals is huge and is rapidly growing with the development of economy. However, the vertical social service platforms targeting professionals are still in the initial stages, said Han Hui, CEO wolonge.com.

Traditional online recruitment cannot solve the information gap between recruiting companies and job seekers, while professional networking websites can provide a platform for them to know each other more and to respect each other

BEIJING: The Chinese government today said it has created 12.02 million new jobs in the first 11 months of this year surpassing the goal of 9 million.

The urban registered unemployment rate stood at 4.1 per cent at the end of September, below the annual target of 4.6 per cent, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS) said.

The employment situation has been better than expected this year amid the backdrop of slowing global economic recovery and downward pressures weighing on the domestic economy, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Human Resources Minister Yin Weimin as saying.

Meanwhile, massive layoffs have also been rare this year, as a continuous labour shortage left employers more prudent about staff cuts, Zhou added.

Yin said the focus of next year's work will still be employment for college graduates, an expanding population that has hit 6.8 million this year.

China will carry out and improve policies in support of the employment and entrepreneurship of college graduates, expand their employment areas and introduce public recruitment services to campuses, Yin said.

To boost employment, the government also vowed to support the development of small and micro enterprises and strengthen social responsibility among large enterprises at the conference held on December 15 and 16.

China's total urban population in search of employment reached 25 million in 2012, far exceeding the 12 million new jobs created annually in recent years, data show.

Analysts have pointed out that in addition to the pressure to create more jobs, there is a notable gap between the skills of the unemployed and the skills required for certain positions.

Most industries in China are currently facing a serious shortage of skilled workers. The manufacturing sector alone, according to the MHRSS, is in need of about 4 million senior technicians.

China's Labor Market Report 2012 just released in Beijing shows a large number of university students left campus without finding a job in the past decade. Experts believe that unversity recruitment expansion is not the cause of high unemployment among graduates. Boosting education reform and adjusting demand and supply in the labor market is the key to the solution.

The expansion of college recruitment started in 1999 when 1.6 million students were admitted to universities and colleges in China that year. The figure was 50 percent higher than the previous year.

After that, the student recruitment scale kept growing at a fast pace; in 2012, more than 68 million students entered universities and colleges.

Since 2002, the year when the first batch of students in the recruitment expansion period graduated, to 2012, more than 47 million college students graduated and entered the labor market. Their skill and knowledge effectively enhanced the general level of the labor force. Statistics show that less than 5 percent of the labor force in the year 2000 had received a higher education, this figure reached more than 10 percent in 2010.

However, the Dean of Chinese Academy of Personnel Science Wu Jiang says the rate of employees with a higher education in the Chinese labor market still lags behind other countries.

"This rate is far from sufficient. The figure in some countries already reached about 20 percent in 2005. We hope to achieve this goal in 2020."

Analysis indicates that if there were no college recruitment expansion, the pressure in the labor market may come more from the low-end market. It's hard to imagine what influence a large scale low-end labor market would have on the country in terms of the economy and family life.

In spite of the improvements, the first time employment rate among college graduates remain low. Figures show that from 2002 to 2012, more than 30 percent of the college graduates failed to find jobs before they graduate. That is to say, more than 1 million college graduates are unemployed every year.

The Labor Market Report 2012 also points out that among those unemployed, 40 percent are students of law, economic management, accounting, business and foreign trade. But 90 percent of the students majoring in science and technology, medical science, agriculture, education are employed following graduation.

Tang Min, counselor at China State Council says education reform is one of the key causes.

"The biggest problem is our education reform didn't follow up. A significant amount of students have a hard time in catching up the changes in the society and our universities failed to give them sufficient base knowledge to tackle the changes."

Dean of Economic Management Institute of Beijing Normal University Lai Desheng believes that the recruitment expansion should not be blamed for the college graduates' high unemployment rate.

The report also points out that there is a regional imbalance in the labor market because students prefer larger cities.

Xie Ying, is the director of medical reform team at a medical bureau in Bijie, a low income city in Guizhou Province.

"Most college graduates choose to work in bigger cities like Guiyang or Zunyi, rather than Bijie. Some students whose hukou, or residency permit, is here choose to come back to Bijie but there are very few who would like to work here."

The China Labor Market Report 2012 figures show that in the past 10 years, only 12 percent of the new graduates are willing to work in rural areas, and no big change has been seen in the rate since 2002.

Despite the fact that economic development in China's less developed mid- and western areas has improved in recent years, more than 50 percent of the graduates still choose to work in the east where the economy is better developed. Students who possessed master's and doctor's degree will spare no effort to find employment in cities like Beijing and Shanghai. This phenomenon remains prevalent.

Popular employment choices for graduates are education, public management, social organization and manufacturing. Information industry, media, real estate and commercial services are also popular.

BEIJING, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- China's job market is feeling the pressure from the country's economic downshift, as new job growth slows and more people become unemployed, a senior employment official said Monday.

"The impact of economic slowdown on the job market is starting to emerge," said Vice Minister of Human Resources and Social Security Yang Zhiming at a press conference on the sidelines of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which opened on Nov. 8.

The growth of newly added jobs in cities has been narrowing since April, while job vacancies have dropped with higher registered unemployed number, Yang said.

"China will continue to face the problem of labor oversupply for a long time," he told reporters.

China's job market is under great pressure this year as nearly 7 million college graduates have entered the job market, while migrant workers and unemployed urbanites still have difficulty getting full employment, said Yang.

China's urban registered unemployment rate stood at 4.1 percent at the end of September, unchanged from the second quarter of 2012, according to official figures. It was lower than the officially set ceiling of 4.6 percent this year.

The country created 10.24 million new jobs in urban areas in the first nine months, exceeding the annual target of 9 million for this year.

Yang said the government will boost labor-intensive industries as well as strategic emerging industries to bring job growth along with economic development.

He said the government will encourage college students to work in the central-western regions or start their own businesses, facilitate the development of small- and medium-sized enterprises and offer better training for rural workers.

SAN JOSE — The question often comes up in job interviews, says Huawei executive John Roese, who has been recruiting scores of Silicon Valley engineers and programmers to help the Chinese tech giant take on Cisco Systems and other Western rivals.

The answer, Roese says, is: "No, we don't have any relationship with the Chinese government."

But the affable head of Huawei's North American research arm says he is used to confronting the subject. In recent years, concerns about Huawei's ownership scuttled its bid for a major telecommunications contract and forced the company to back away from two acquisitions after U.S. officials objected to the deals.

Huawei is one of China's biggest multinationals, with sizable financial and engineering resources, including 18 research centers around the world. But it's counting heavily on Silicon Valley talent to develop new hardware and software for telecom networks and corporate computer systems.

In the past year, Huawei has more than doubled the staff at its Santa Clara research center, growing to 430 with 200 more hires planned in 2011.

"Santa Clara is going to be a key to our future success," said Bill Plummer, a spokesman at Huawei's North American business headquarters in Plano, Texas.

But Huawei needs to overcome concerns raised by U.S. officials and members of Congress, who have charged that the company's efforts to acquire technology or sell communications gear to U.S. carriers could pose a threat to national security.

Huawei officials deny the allegations and have launched a campaign to reassure the United States.

Earlier this year, the company published an unusual open letter, inviting the U.S. government to investigate its background. In April, for the first time, Huawei published the names and photos of its corporate directors in its annual report — a standard practice for Western corporations.

"If we don't tell you who's running the company, then we're not being transparent. So we're now being very aggressive about that," said Roese. "We're starting a bit late. We were kind of an enigma to some."

Three years ago, Huawei was forced to withdraw a bid to invest in 3Com, the networking company later acquired by Hewlett-Packard, after U.S. officials raised concerns the deal would allow Chinese access to 3Com's technology. Earlier this year, Huawei said it backed away from a deal to buy the assets of 3Leaf Systems, a Silicon Valley cloud computing firm, after an interagency federal panel again raised objections.

A spokeswoman for the government's Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which has members from such agencies as Defense, Treasury and Homeland Security, said the panel's proceedings are confidential.

But two U.S. senators, Democrat Jim Webb of Virginia and Republican Jon Kyl of Arizona, warned in a public letter that the 3Leaf deal "could pose a serious risk" to the United States, in part because of Huawei's "well-established ties" to the Chinese People's Liberation Army.

Concerns have focused on Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei's 10 years as an army official, in a country where the military often has influence over state-run industries, and on reports that Huawei has received financial support from the Chinese government.

Huawei, which says Ren started the company four years after retiring from the army in 1983, insists the government has no ownership or role in the operation. Huawei officials have blamed competitors for stirring up protectionist sentiment.

"We recognize that because Huawei has a heritage in China and the fact that the U.S. and Chinese governments have at times had a tense relationship, we are unfortunately viewed through the prism of that relationship," Plummer said.

The company lost out on a major contract to supply gear for Sprint last year after objections were raised in Washington, according to The Wall Street Journal.

But Huawei is vying for other U.S. deals and has contracts with major telecom carriers in Europe and Canada, which have "rigorously audited" Huawei's technology, Plummer said.

At its Santa Clara campus, meanwhile, Huawei is working to develop new networking technology, as well as software to manage complex IT systems and new ways to integrate computing, networking and data storage.

Huawei is the world's second-largest supplier of networking gear for telecommunications carriers, according to the Gartner research firm. Now it wants to sell a broad range of technology to other businesses, putting it squarely in competition with Cisco, Hewlett-Packard and others.

It also wants to build systems that carriers can use to offer cloud computing services to their customers. And it's entered the consumer market with a line of smartphones and a new 7-inch Android tablet announced last month.

"We're not an established player" in those markets, Roese acknowledged. But he said that's been a selling point to recent hires, including former engineers at Sun Microsystems, Cisco and other Silicon Valley companies.

Roese describes Huawei as "a very aggressive, 100,000-person startup," with all the resources but far less bureaucracy than other tech giants. "It's a really interesting technology company," he tells job candidates, "that happens to have started in another part of the world."

BEIJING, June 9 (Xinhua) -- More Chinese college graduates are finding jobs, with the employment rate back to the pre-crisis level and a significant rise in salaries, a latest survey shows.

The employment rate of college graduates has risen over the last two years to 89.6 percent in 2010, about 2 percentage points higher than that in 2007, according to a survey by education research company MyCOS Institute released Thursday.

Some 227,000 college graduates were interviewed for the survey six months after they graduated last year.

In breakdown, 91.2 percent of the university graduates and 88.1 percent of the graduates from junior colleges and higher vocational schools found jobs within six months of graduation, according to the survey.

Meanwhile, college graduates' average monthly starting salary was 2,479 yuan (381.4 U.S.dollars) in 2010, 349 yuan higher than the starting salary of those who graduated in 2009, MyCOS said, attributing the rise to rising demand for skilled workers.

The survey also covered some 109,500 employees who graduated from college in 2007. Their average monthly income had reached 4,388 yuan, more than double what they earned three years ago when first interviewed by MyCOS.

China's eastern and costal regions were still the most attractive places to work for college graduates, with Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou as the most appealing cities, according to the survey.

But among those who graduated in 2007, more than 20 percent of them had left the three cities within three years of graduation, it said.

About 60 percent of the interviewees who graduated last year thought their jobs did not match their expectations.

Some 36 percent of these graduates regarded their positions as "inconsistent" with their career plan, while 22 percent of them said the work failed to match their interests.

Jobs not matching career plans was a salient reason why 34 percent of these graduates left their positions within six months of graduation, said MyCOS.

More graduates are starting their own businesses after graduation, with 1.5 percent of graduates becoming self-employed in 2010. Most of the graduates' start-up funding came from parents, relatives, friends and personal savings, according to the survey.

51job, Inc. (JOBS) Q1 2011 Earnings Call May 5, 2011 9:00 pm ET

Operator

Good morning and good evening ladies and gentlemen thank you for holding. Welcome to the 51job, Incorporated first quarter 2011 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the presentation there will be an opportunity to ask questions (Operator Instructions). I will now hand the conference over to Ms. Linda Chien, Assistant Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you, Madam. Please go ahead.

Linda Chien

Thank you all for attending this teleconference to discuss un-audited financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2011. With me for today?s call are Rick Yan, Chief Executive Officer and Kathleen Chien, Chief Operating Officer and Acting Chief Financial Officer. A press release containing first quarter 2011 results was issued earlier today and a copy may be obtained through our website at ir.51job.com.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that during this call, statements regarding targets for the second quarter of 2011, future business and operating results constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended and as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

These statements are based upon management?s current expectation and actual results could differ materially. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ are the number of recruitment advertisements placed, sales orders received and customer contracts executed during the remaining weeks of the second quarter of 2011, any accounting adjustments that may occur during the quarterly close; fluctuations in the value of the Renminbi against the U.S. dollar and other currency; behavioral and operational changes of customers in meeting their human resource needs as they respond to evolving social, economic and political changes in China as well as stock market volatilities; introduction by competitors of new or enhanced products or services; price competition in the market for the various human resource services that the company provides in China; acceptance of new products and services developed or introduced by the company outside of the human resources industry and fluctuations in general economic conditions.

For additional information on these and other factors that may affect the company?s financial results, please refer to the risk factor section of the company?s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 51job undertakes no obligation to update targets prior to announcing final results for the second quarter of 2011 or as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Now I?ll turn the call over to Rick.

Rick Yan

Thank you, Linda. And welcome to today?s call. I will begin with highlights of the first quarter, followed by Kathleen with her detailed review of our financial results. I will then discuss current market conditions and recent developments. Finally, we?ll open the call to your questions.

Results for the first quarter came in ahead of guidance as the positive economic climate and robust hiring activity in China throughout demand for our services. We reported total revenues of RMB 325 million or approximately $50 million, an increase of 28% over the first quarter of 2010. We saw solid revenue growth in each business area. The momentum of our online services business remained strong with online revenues increasing 57% year over year.

We have employers across all geographies utilizing our established sales office network to further penetrate existing markets and our Wuhan call center to serve employers in new cities. This two pronged approach has enabled us to acquire new customers more effectively and efficiently than ever. Our print advertising business also performed well in the first quarter. Although, we have discontinued publications in six cities since the beginning of 2010 through the first quarter of 2011; print revenues were better than expected and decreased by 6% due to the exceptionally strong seasonal demand in the post Chinese New Year period.

In our other HR services business we make steady progress in continuing to gain customer attraction. Revenues for the other HR services increased 25% led by growth in outsourcing and training services. While we are very pleased with our top line the greater accomplishment of the first quarter was the meaningful margin expansion that resulted from the revenue of the performance. The record margin efforts highlight the powerful economies of scale and scope we have built into our service model.

Through unrelenting operational discipline and a consistent focus on efficiency improvement which drove gross margin to 70% and operating margin to 35% despite absorbing higher employee compensation expenses and investing in product development and technology innovation. Since our inception 13 years ago we have not wavered from our guiding management principle to realize sustainable profitable growth for our shareholders. We believe this first quarter financial results reflect our continued progress towards this goal.

I would now turn over the call to Kathleen for more detailed financial review.

Kathleen Chien

Thank you, Rick. Revenues for the first quarter totaled RMB325 million, a 28% increase compared to the same quarter in 2010. Our online revenues for the first quarter were RMB173 million, an increase of 57% compared to the same quarter in 2010. The number of unique employers using our online services increased 38% year over year to nearly 155,000 companies in the first quarter due to the strong market demand and our customer acquisition efforts. We also saw a 14% increase in the average revenue per online customer compared to the year ago quarter as employers faced greater competition for talent and thus purchase more services to meet their recruitment targets.

Print advertising revenues decreased 6% to RMB86 million compared with RMB92 million in the first quarter of 2010. The decline was primarily due to the discontinuation of print operations in certain cities over the past year as well as the resulting decrease in page volume. Print advertising pages in the first quarter of 2011 decreased 28% to approximately 2200 pages compared with about 3100 pages in the prior year?s quarter. However, the page volume decrease was largely offset by the higher revenue per page assisted by the strong seasonal demand or average revenue per page increased 31% due to greater contribution from the higher priced cities as well as an increase in print advertising rates in a few cities in the first quarter of 2011.

In line with the historical trends we expect print revenues in the second quarter to decline in both absolute terms and as a percentage of total revenues. We have also terminated the publication in the city of Kunming in April. This reduces the number of cities in which we operate print operations to 15. Our HR services revenues grew 25% to RMB65 million in the first quarter of 2011. We achieved solid growth in our outsourcing and training businesses due to the greater customer acceptance and demand.

Gross profit increased 39% year over year to RMB215 million and gross margin increased to 70% from 64% in the first quarter of 2010. The margin expansion was primarily due to the process improvements and our operating efficiency. Included in cost of services in the first quarter was share based compensation expense of RMB1 million, though the marketing expenses increased approximately 26% year over year to RMB71 million in the first quarter of 2011 mainly as a result of higher employee wages, commissions and bonuses. Included in sales and marketing expenses were share based compensation expenses of approximately RMB0.8 million in the first quarter.

For the second quarter we will be stepping up advertising and brand building activities but we expect sales and marketing expenses to be within the historical range of 25% to 30% of net revenues. G&A expenses for the first quarter were RMB37 million down slightly from the year ago quarter. Share based compensation expense included in G&A in the first quarter was RMB4.3 million, operating income for the first quarter of 2011 increased 77% to RMB 107 million compared with RMB61 million in the same quarter in 2010.

Our operating margin expanded to 35% compared with 25% in the first quarter of 2010. Net income for the first quarter increased 82% to RMB92 million compared with RMB50 million in the same quarter of 2010. Fully diluted earnings were RMB1.55 per common share which is equivalent to $0.47 per ADS. Excluding share based compensation expense, foreign currency translation loss and their related tax impacts our non-GAAP adjusted net income increased 78% year over year to RMB101 million in the first quarter. Non-GAAP adjusted fully diluted earnings per common share were RMB1.71 or $0.52 per ADS.

In late April, we issued stock options to employees and directors at their market value. As a result we expect that share based compensation expense will increase from RMB6 million in the first quarter to approximately RMB10 million in the second quarter. Looking at our balance sheet, our cash and short-term investments increased to RMB1.7 billion or approximately $265 million. Short-term investment consists of certificate of deposit with original maturities from three months to one year. Now I will turn the call back over to Rick.

Rick Yan

Thank you, Chien. Our observations of hiring trends and employer behavior that?s just slightly in 2011 continue to indicate robust market demand. We saw a strong uptick in job listings across the board in a post Chinese New Year period, picking at more than 2 million active job positions. The competition for managerial talent and experienced workers in particular has also become increasingly fierce among employers driving wages increased and greater spending on recruitment services. Amid a backdrop of these favorable market conditions we roll out a new rate card online services which went into effect on April 1. In addition to the introduction of new services and packages we instituted a number of price adjustments which very widely depending on product and city.

As existing customers already under contract will not be subject to these new prices until renewal, the impact of the new rate card would be limited in the second quarter. The length of our online services contracts typically ranges from one month to one year. Therefore, we expect to gradually realize mid-to-high single digit increase in average revenue per customer from the new pricelist through 2011.

While we are taking opportunity to capture some pricing upside we are staying aggressively in our customer acquisition and geographical expansion efforts. In late April, we launched seven new channels to our website adding 13 cities serviced by our Wuhan call center. We now provide dedicated sales coverage and support for our online products to employers in 56 cities. We will further increase our national footprint this year.

Recently, there have been media reports regarding new and potential entrance into the online recruitment space in China. However, to-date the competitive landscape feels generally unchanged to us as we maintain and establish a widely acknowledged market leadership position, to reach knowledge and relationships we have into hundreds of thousands of HR departments is unparalleled. We have leveraged these assets into becoming a trusted partner to corporations across all the human resources needs, not just providing them with an advertising platform.

We know how to compete, we know how to execute and we know how to monetize. With ample financial resources backed by strong balance sheet in our highly experienced call management team, we are confident that we can continue to win. Now turning to our guidance, based on current market and operating conditions, our total revenue target for the second quarter of 2011 is in estimated range of RMB325million to RMB335 million which will be a 26% year-over-year increase at the midpoint. Our estimated non-GAAP fully diluted EPS target is between RMB1.6 to RMB1.7 per common share.

Please note that, if non-GAAP EPS range does not include share based compensation expense, foreign currency translation loss know their related tax impact. As Kathleen mentioned earlier, our share based compensation expense is expected to increase to approximately RMB10 million in the second quarter. This guidance reflects our current forecast which is subject to change. In addition, seasonality in our businesses, we remind you that sequential quarterly comparisons can be misleading, and we believe year-over-year comparisons are more applicable for measuring our financial performance.

Our priorities going forward are crystal clear. We are focused on growing our customer base, increasing revenue opportunities, investing in new product development and delivering solid returns to our shareholders. We believe the stock we have had in 2011 provide further confirmation that we are executing the right strategic plan to develop the most powerful brand in human resources services in China.

That concludes our presentation, we will be happy to take your questions at this stage. Operator?

Jingwei.com, an SNS aimed at business professionals created by Beijing-based holding company Oak Pacific Interactive and Chinese online recruitment site Zhaopin, officially launched today.

In closed beta since earlier this month, registration on Jingwei is now open to the public; adding "friends" on the new site requires an "introduction" from a mutual acquaintance of both parties.

Jingwei spokesperson Shu Wei said the site will host "Company Day" events beginning in April, allowing employees from global Fortune 500 and well-known domestic firms to 'mingle' on companies' designated pages on the site.

Mar. 16 ? While 10 years ago, China?s low-cost labor force was one of the major drivers pushing foreign manufacturers to choose the emerging nation as their production base, nowadays China?s human resource (HR) market is witnessing significant changes alongside its developing industrial landscape. But while it is widely recognized that hiring is becoming more expensive across the country ? especially in some industries and in major coastal cities like Shanghai - it should also be noted that the overall HR market is becoming more mature for employers.

More expensive hiring

According to the latest statistics released by Robert Walters in its 2011 China Salary Survey, recruitment activity increased in the first half of 2010 and peaked between April and June as the Chinese economy quickly recovered from the Global Financial Crisis amid strong market conditions. The survey predicts that in 2011, salary rises are likely to be around 10 percent across various industries, while top-tier candidates may command approximate 15 percent to 30 percent increases in their compensation.

The size of a company?s hiring budget is closely related to China?s policy alterations and economic development focus. Furthermore, a strong demand for information technology (IT) advancement, encouragement in merger and acquisition (M&A) activities, prosperity in consumer markets, and China?s attempts to further open up its financial sector mean that businesses in the fields of financial services, accounting, IT, sales and marketing may need to prepare bigger paychecks for their employees.

Shanghai: an increasingly mature HR market

Zhang Sheng, the Commerce Finance Division manager of Robert Walters, describes Shanghai as the third most mature hiring market in Asia among commerce-centered cities, following Hong Kong and Singapore. As Shanghai gains growing global presence and is ready to accommodate headquarters of international businesses, employers will be impressed to find out there is a significant number of candidates available with both local and international experience that make them completely qualified as being ?decision makers? instead of ?command followers.?

Professionals with local experience in the Shanghai market are of much value for employers who look to set up their business in Shanghai, since many of them have grown and learned with China?s rapid development and reforms in the past decade. The distinct development stages China has gone through in such a short period has enabled them to master a much wider span of business knowledge than those working in a country with relatively stable development.

The Shanghai HR market?s maturity also resides in its mounting diversity and comprehensiveness.

?You can find professionals at all levels to meet your demands in the city,? Zhang emphasized.

The overall national infrastructure development has not only made it easier for companies that want to take advantage of the lower cost in China?s inland cities to relocate their manufacturing bases and build up a national supply chain, but it also makes it more possible for those employers to hire people who are willing to relocate. The changing attitude to relocation means a senior manager can stay with a company longer, have a better understanding of the company?s periodical strategies, and thus become more qualified for participating in long-term decision-making.

The staff loyalty mystery

While loyalty is supposed to be highly valued in the Chinese culture, staff loyalty is becoming more and more of a mystery for many employers. On one hand, with a massive HR supply, the competition in China?s job market is fierce; on the other hand, companies still often find it difficult to maintain a comparatively stable staff since many employees hop from one job to another frequently for better opportunities or pay.

Zhang believes that low staff loyalty has something to do with China?s growth pattern. The country?s fast shifts in development focus has led to professional shortages in some fields. For example, While China?s M&A market just started booming two years ago, the supply of professional accountants that can help complete compliance processes failed to meet the surging demand, because it definitely takes longer than two years for an accountant to grow mature and competent enough for those positions. The imbalanced supply-demand relationship resulted in companies bidding for the limited amount of professionals, and finally facilitated the phenomenon of ?job changers.?

In order to maintain valuable employees, companies may need to take a closer look at China?s policy trends to receive a better understanding of when is the best time to offer employees more incentives. A universal 30 percent post-financial crisis salary increase in many companies that cut redundancy during the crisis is a good example showing how those employers perceive the ever-changing HR market conditions during different periods.

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) ? Headhunters recruiting in China say they?ve rarely seen busier times.

Domestic and multinational companies seeking to bolster staff as part of bold expansion plans in the Chinese market have sparked frenzied bidding to attract qualified personnel across a broad ranges of industries, recruitment experts say.

Candidates with the right level of education and skills are typically seeing inducement offers that include salary increases of 40% to 50%, in addition to enhanced responsibility.

?I think China is the hardest place right now to secure talent and to retain talent,? said Christine Greybe, president of recruitment firm DHR International in Hong Kong.

She estimates that about 30% of candidates who plan on leaving their companies receive counteroffers which match or even exceed the rival offer, as companies grow wary of the loss of personnel through poaching.

?A lot of attention is going towards finding ways to keep talent, which is very unusual to anything we saw before,? Greybe said.

The hiring drive reflects ambitious plans among multinationals to secure opportunities in China. In some cases, companies are seeking to double or even triple managerial staff within a few years, cramming growth that would normally happen in a 10-year window, experts say.

?There?s been a redoubling of growth imperative of by multinationals trying to head into Asia, because companies are finding it hard to grow in the U.S. and Europe,? said Mike Game, the Hong Kong-based Asia chief executive officer for multinational recruitment company Hudson.
China growing its state media

China's state media are expanding aggressively to compete with private Internet companies.

Mainland Chinese companies are also offering more competitive wages for their senior executives, shrinking what?s been traditionally a gap with compensation packages offered by multinationals.

In some cases, Chinese companies are now paying salaries and packages that meet or beat those offered by Western companies, says Greybe, adding executives in technology companies ? such as Chinese Internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. /quotes/comstock/22h!e:700 (HK:700 218.20, -6.00, -2.68%) /quotes/comstock/11i!tctzf (TCTZF 28.94, +0.09, +0.31%) ? look more to stock options and other forms of compensation outside of salaries.
The place to be

?China is the place people want to be. They are not interested in a job in the U.S. in the way they may have been two or three years ago,? Greybe said, referring to China-born professionals.

Chinese companies accounted for 54 of those in the Fortune 500 list in 2010, up from 35 in 2008.

Greybe said that some clients take the view that careers spent at home could pay bigger dividends, given China?s rising status in the global economy.

In fact, leading Chinese firms are now more sought after than multinationals among mainland engineering graduates born between 1980 and 1990, according data compiled by recruitment company AonHewitt.

The jobs squeeze is also spilling over to service-center hubs outside mainland China, including Hong Kong and Singapore.

Lawyers with the right educational profile and job experience can expect to receive a half dozen offers within a few weeks, said Denvy Lo, a senior consultant with legal recruitment specialists Laurence Simons.

It?s fairly standard to expect pay rises of 30% to 40% when jumping firms, she said, adding that the frenzied recruiting conditions are reminiscent of the boom times of 2007.

?They will look around to see who can offer them the most and the best package,? Lo said.

Among those most in demand are China-born candidates who completed law degrees in the U.S. and have a few years? experience with multinational companies in Asia, Lo said.

The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey results for China were just released, with the data coming in a little worse than the previous two quarters, but strong compared to recent years. Net hiring intentions fell to 29% from 38% in Q1 this year, and a high of 51% in Q4 last year.

Chinese employers forecast an active labor market in Quarter 2 2011. While 34% of employers expect to increase staffing levels, 5% predict a decrease and 53% anticipate no change. The resulting Net Employment Outlook stands at +29%.

In short, though, the results are actually quite positive. Looking at the chart below, China is actually in the midst of a hiring boom. Compared to Q2 2010, much of its recent history hiring intentions for the second quarter of 2011 are still pretty strong. It's no wonder, then, that you hear stories about rising wages in China, or labor shortages. And it's this surge in employment that is creating an interesting set of threats and opportunities for the Chinese economy.

Looking at it on a sector-by-sector basis, the clear leader is Manufacturing, with a net 31% of firms looking to increase staff. The manufacturing sector also saw the smallest decrease compared to Q1 (down by only a couple of percentage points). Another strong sector is Finance, Insurance & Real Estate -- which is interesting with the backdrop of a booming property market -- with 10 million units of social housing set to be built this year.

Another strong sector is Services, with a net 28% of firms planning to hire; also interesting from an economic rebalancing angle. In other words, it is interesting to see sectors like Services, Wholesale & Retail Trade, and Finance doing well, as growth in these sectors will help China rebalance its economy to being domestic demand-led, rather than export-oriented.

So what is the overall synopsis? In terms of employment outlook, the answer is still "boom." Net hiring intentions show firms still need to hire more workers, which can be driven by a number of things, but is usually motivated by growth of the business and a need to increase capacity. It's this lack of spare capacity that is also contributing to higher inflation. Indeed, a key driver of inflation in China this year will not just be commodities, but also rising wage inflation.

This creates an interesting dilemma for the Chinese government: On the one hand it needs to stave off high levels of inflation to avoid instability and maintain a sustainable rate of growth; on the other hand, rising wages may also be a key catalyst in helping rebalance the Chinese economy and growing domestic demand, instead of relying on a low-cost export-oriented model. And of course there is the tension of reducing inflation, but without stalling the economy.

In short, the survey results suggest that the Chinese economy is still going strong, and is likely to continue to grow at a strong pace this year as domestic demand rises and government spending continues (the government plans to run a deficit this year). However, the inflation risks are highlighted and accentuated by this data point.

So it remains to be seen how the inflation battle unfolds. But as long as the fundamentals remain intact, it's almost a certainty that buying opportunities will be present, especially if valuations overshoot in reaction to monetary policy tightening.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

LinkedIn became accessible again inside China early Friday evening after the business networking site had been blocked Thursday ? was this a technical glitch, or is this part of an ongoing adjustment to the Great Firewall? Chinese authorities never explicitly verify intentional maneuvers individually, but they have been intensely vigilant of Web 2.0 services since their inception, and every other foreign social media site that leads its market is already blocked, including Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Foursquare.

What would be the reason to block LinkedIn? The Great Firewall has never issued a press release, but the answer is usually obvious. What may do in LinkedIn (if the block rematerializes) is the ?Jasmine Revolution,? which so far has been not a protest movement but an occasion to display the reach of China?s security apparatus and the limits placed on China?s Internet. Self-described organizers say the attempts to protest will continue with weekly Sunday strolls in cities around China.

If LinkedIn has committed a Web 2.0 crime in China?s eyes, there are a couple possibilities: the most likely issue, given Beijing?s desire to quash organizing of any form, is that there have been attempts by Jasmine organizers to reach out to others over LinkedIn, thus spreading the word via LinkedIn invitations; another issue, raised by Techrice, is the built-in ability to post to Twitter via LinkedIn, getting around the Great Firewall without the need for circumvention tools. As Techrice notes, ?being the easiest way to tweet is a lousy government relations strategy in China.?

Sensitive events are almost always the catalyst for these blocks, and though initial blocks are often temporary (as was the case with Facebook and Twitter in the past), once you are on China?s ?do not connect? list, it is hard to get off. Youtube has been blocked since the Tibet riots of March 2008; Facebook and Twitter were each blocked permanently after the Xinjiang riots of July 2009; and location-based service Foursquare has been blocked since users tried to ?check in? en masse to Tiananmen Square last year on the June 4 anniversary of the 1989 massacre of protestors.

Chinese clones of these services naturally benefit from each of these Great Firewall ?upgrades.? Youku.com, the leading online video site, IPO?d in December and is valued on the New York Stock Exchange at $3.8 billion. Renren, the leading Facebook of China with 160 million users, is expected soon to raise $500 million in a U.S. IPO. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg is clearly trying to get Facebook back into China, perhaps through a joint venture with a trusted Chinese company like Baidu.

Sina Corp.?s Weibo, the dominant Chinese Twitter-like service, launched in August 2009, a month after Twitter was blocked, and is likely approaching 100 million users. Analysts disagree widely on Weibo?s value, in part due to worries about whether Beijing would shut down or severely curtail the service, but guesses range from as low as $1.5 billion to as high as $3 billion. And there is no shortage of Chinese versions of Foursquare ? including Dianping, Jiepang and a check-in service on Renren ? but you can bet none of them will be allowing users to ?check in? to the Jasmine Revolution, much less Tiananmen Square on June 4 every year.

Who will gain if LinkedIn does get blocked? (LinkedIn, as Techrice noted, did not have a Chinese-language interface, was not a huge player in the China market to begin with, and should not feel ill effects if it ends up being blocked as it looks toward an IPO). No company has yet to become ?the LinkedIn of China,? but one widely cited contender is ushi.cn. One more candidate to watch for, reports Techrice, is Jingwei, a sister company of Renren that is in beta-testing.

SEEK Limited (ASX:SEK) grew its 1H profit 31% to $36.6 million, as a result of strong domestic growth and its Chinese venture Zhaopin swinging to profitability.

The company, which operates the employment website SEEK.com.au, reported a 22% year-on-year increase in revenue to $130.3 million. Ebitda grew 12% to $55.8 million.

The company's employment business in Australia and New Zealand recorded revenue of $106.8 million and ebitda of $62.8 million, up 36% and 55% respectively.

SEEK's outgoing joint CEO, Paul Bassat said the results reflect the ongoing migration of employment advertising from print to online. ?As employment markets have improved, growth in online job ads has significantly outpaced growth in print job ads,? he said.

He pointed to ANZ research which shows that online currently captures some 82% of all job ads.

SEEK's Zhaopin joint venture, in which it owns a 56.1% stake, moved to profitability during the period, achieving a positive ebitda in each month.

But its SEEK Education businesses ? SEEK Learning, THINK and IDP ? had a challenging six months, Bassat said.

SEK shares fell 11.74% during Tuesday's trading to $6.240.

SEEK on Tuesday also announced that Paul Bassat's brother, Andrew Bassat has signed a contract to become the company's sole CEO until at least 2013.

To check companies reported violation of rules to require hepatitis B tests for job applicants, the Chinese Government has reiterated a strict ban on the tests during pre-employment physical examinations.

China's Ministry of Health said that no health institutions are allowed to provide hepatitis B checks as part of pre-employment physical tests regardless of whether the examinees provide consent or not.

On Feb. 10, 2010, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security jointly issued a circular demanding the cancellation of the hepatitis B tests during the health checks for school enrollment and employment nationwide, Xinhua reports.

However, according to a survey released this week, which was conducted by the non-profit Beijing Yirenping Center, some 61.1 percent of the 180 state-run companies surveyed included hepatitis B checks in their pre-employment physical examinations.

More surprisingly, 63 companies said that they would never consider hepatitis B carriers for a job or were reluctant to hire such people.

Yu Fangqiang, the principal of the Yirenping Center, said that such violations mainly resulted from light punishment for violations and some health institutions' desire for profits.

Source-ANI

A total of 57 million jobs will have been created in China's urban areas over the 2006-2010 period, the Minister of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS) Yin Weimin said Thursday.

Annual employment for the period will be 11.4 million, or 2.1 million more than China's 10th Five-Year Program (2001-2005) period, said Yin while addressing a national human resources and social security work conference.

Yin said the unemployment rate had remained under 4.3 percent throughout the period, while nearly 45 million underemployed rural workers had taken up new jobs in the non-agricultural sectors, 5 million more than the 2001-2005 period.

The Employment Promotion Law of 2007 as well as measures introduced after several natural disasters and the global financial crisis had boosted employment, Yin said.

Also, a system providing vocational training and employment services was taking shape, he said.

About 86 million people received special vocational training and 330 million people used government employment services during the period, he added.

Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang said at the national conference on human resources and social security that China needed to resolutely stick to the task of creating jobs and keep improving the social security system during the coming 12th Five-Year-Plan period (2011-2015).

In the next five years, the government should implement more effective employment measures and create jobs through diversified channels, Zhang said .

Zhang also said the government should increase investment in the social security network and expand the network's coverage so to improve the country's social security system for both rural and urban residents.

INTERNET job hunting giant Seek has expanded further into southeast Asia, taking a $206 million stake in a Hong Kong-based online recruitment website.

Seek yesterday announced it had purchased the majority holding in employment website Jobs DB Inc, giving it a 60 per cent slice of the Chinese company through the creation of a new company, Seek Asia.

Seek Asia is a partnership between Seek, James Packer's Consolidated Media Holdings, Macquarie Capital and Tiger Global.

Seek's co-chief executive Andrew Bassat said the move into Asia "built upon the company's existing international footprint" and exposed the company to "attractive regions".

"We believe this transaction represents a compelling opportunity for Seek to play an increasingly meaningful role and to expand its exposure in the region."

Seek's latest acquisition adds to several other major international investments including Chinese online jobs board Zhaopin; Southeast Asian recruitment website JobStreet and employment sites in Brazil and Mexico.

Evans and Partners analyst Paul Ryan said the Jobs DB acquisition would be part of Seek's long term strategy to become a leader in the Pan-Asian online employment market.

"When you add Jobs DB in, the combined businesses have a larger, more diversified and better presence in southern China," Mr Ryan said. "It's a bigger, more diversified and more profitable business."

Mr Ryan said he expected Macquarie and Tiger Global to exit Seek Asia through an IPO at a later date.

However, another analyst said Seek may have been spreading itself too thin with its latest Asian investment following co-founder and chief executive Paul Bassat's plans to leave the company in mid-2011.

"This is another company that they have to integrate and manage and try to grow," said the analyst, who declined to be named.

Seek Australia has a 69 per cent holding in Seek Asia and the other 31 per cent, $64 million, will be divided between the three other co-investors.

Mr Packer's $25 million Seek Asia investment was his first since selling out of Seek Australia last year for $440 million.

The media and casino mogul has also invested in Seek's Brazilian acquisition, Brasil Online Holding, and made an unsuccessful attempt to get Paul Bassat on the Ten Network board.

Seek shares rose 1c to $6.57.

On CBS' 60 Minutes last Sunday, the Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista told correspondent Steve Kroft that he's hiring Americans to weld his oil platforms.

"To weld the platforms?" Kroft responded incredulously. "Yes," replied Batista, explaining that his country's booming economy is at almost full employment, and Brazil needs to import workers. "Already we have created this year 1.5 million jobs," continued the world's eighth richest man according to Forbes' most recent tally. "It's unbelievable."

That unbelievable job growth is reflected in the latest global employment outlook survey by the staffing firm Manpower. Brazil rates fourth on the tally of the nations with the greatest optimism about hiring in the first quarter of next year. Brazil's net hiring outlook--the number of employers surveyed who expect to increase their employment rolls minus the percentage who expect to decrease them--is 36%. That's driven by a 7% gross domestic product growth rate, three times higher than in the U.S.

Manpower surveyed 64,000 human resource directors and senior hiring managers from public and private concerns worldwide to come up with its list. It asked each of them about their expectations for hiring in the first quarter of 2011. Almost half, 47% of them, came from 10 countries in the Americas, 24% from eight countries in Asia and the Pacific, and 29% from Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "This is very much a macro-economic look at new job creation," says the staffing firm's chairman and chief executive, Jeffrey Joerres.

The results are striking, if not surprising. India has pulled ahead of China since last quarter to take first place, with a whopping 42% net hiring outlook for the first quarter of 2011. China follows close behind at 40%, a 2% decrease from last quarter. Taiwan comes in third, with a net employment outlook of 37%.

Next in line, after Brazil: Turkey, at 27%."There are 75 million people in Turkey," Joerres notes, "more than people realize." And so, despite a lingering debt overhang, there are plenty of consumers buying stuff and driving growth and hiring. Next up after Turkey: Singapore, with a net hiring outlook of 26% for the first quarter.

Are these new jobs ones that should prompt Americans to consider moving? Possibly, says Joerres, though much of the demand gets filled by people from neighboring countries. Outfits like Manpower, which has offices in 82 countries, and the plethora of online job listings make the international job market ever more transparent.

While many of the openings are for low-paying jobs, there are also plenty of opportunities for highly qualified professionals, especially in fields like geoengineering and information systems, Joerres says. Oil and gas engineers are in high demand, for instance. That's a minority of the workers who relocate internationally for jobs, he adds, but it's a minority that's growing: "It's still on the margin, but the margin has gotten bigger."

The countries rounding out the list include Peru, Costa Rica and Argentina as well as Australia and Hong Kong.

How does the U.S. rate? Better than you might expect. It has a 9% net hiring outlook.

China will revise its list of 1,838 different kinds of job categories, which was made by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, Quality and Technical Supervision Bureau and National Statistics Bureau in 1999.

The revision would reflect China's social structure better and help future workforce analysis and human resources development, said Yin Weimin, the Minister of Human Resources and Social Security and head of the revision committee, said at a ceremony held here Thursday.

As the country developed over the past decade, many occupations faded out while new ones appeared and thus the job list needed to be adjusted accordingly, Yin said.

The revision is expected to be finished in the first half of 2012.

For Yukimasa Uchida, managing director of the Japanese arm of the Boston Consulting Group, a recent recruiting trip to sift the best and the brightest among China's top graduates was a revelation.

"It was like striking a gold mine," Uchida said of the job fair.

His company had attended the event expecting to make job offers to two or three students, but only if it could find people of the right quality.

"We have already made job offers to six students in Beijing and Shanghai together," he said. "We may hire some more."

He was not alone among Japanese recruiters in being impressed by the quality of applicants at the event, held in Beijing and Shanghai between Nov. 3-6.

The fair, organized by Recruit Co., a leading job placement agency in Japan, drew about 10,000 students from 39 universities, including the elite Peking and Tsinghua universities in the capital and Fudan University in Shanghai. Of these students, only about 1,000 college seniors were selected for interviews by the prospective Japanese employers, after a vocational aptitude test and preliminary interviews.

For successful applicants, the potential rewards on offer were mouthwatering. Although Japanese businesses have been hiring in China for years, the 22 companies at the fair were hiring people to career-track positions in their Japanese headquarters, rather than jobs at China-based affiliate companies.

That usually means much higher pay and chances for promotion. The companies included major names such as Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Kirin Brewery Co. and Konica Minolta Holdings Inc.

Like Uchida, Noriya Fukumoto, personnel manager of the toymaker Tomy Co., was bowled over by the caliber of the students he encountered.

"They are brilliant," Fukumoto said. "They have a clear vision of their career path and have a strong drive, compared with Japanese students."

Tomy offered jobs to three applicants, one more than it had anticipated. It plans to recruit foreigners to half of its new positions for college graduates in future.

Boston Consulting Group had been hiring between 10 and 20 graduates a year from Japanese colleges, including graduates of the University of Tokyo, Keio University and other big-name schools.

"Most job applicants were inclined to value stability," Uchida said. "There were fewer combative candidates, like soldiers of fortune."

In China, its recruiters were finding ambitious and go-getting personalities, he said, "the type we greatly favor."

The company did not make Japanese language skills a requirement for the recruits at the interview, taking the view that they can learn Japanese after getting a job offer. They all spoke English competently, although most of them had never been abroad.

Junichi Ito, the organizer of the fair at Recruit's Shanghai unit, said the large number of top-quality applicants had been attracted because Japanese businesses were offering positions on the payrolls of their Japan-based operations.

"Japanese affiliates in China have found it hard to secure top-class personnel because their pay is lower than that of U.S. and European counterparts," Ito said. Another obstacle has been a perception that local hires cannot reach the top echelons of corporate hierarchies.

The companies at the fair paid 1 million yen ($12,000) each to take part and were required to pay 1.1 million yen for each new recruit. In return, they got access to the cream of the more than 6 million people who graduate from Chinese colleges each year.

A 22-year-old senior who majors in Japanese at Fudan University said getting on the payroll of a Japanese company's head office was key.

"While a monthly salary at a Japanese affiliate in China is about 3,000 yuan (about 37,000 yen), the starting salary in Japan is about 200,000 yen. There is no comparison," she said.

The promise of working overseas and of greater responsibilities at head office made the positions on offer at the fair very attractive, she said. "Many of my classmates are going to work in the United States and Britain," she said. "I want to work abroad, too."

Xu Shuang, 21, a Japanese major at Tongji University in Shanghai who is studying international economy at Fudan University on weekends, said he had been interviewed by a Japanese bank. The enthusiasm of the Japanese for hiring foreigners was evident, he said. "Japan's corporate culture will be changing."

The targeting of Chinese talent by Japanese businesses is not limited to the graduate market. China's state-run Shanghai Foreign Service Co. and the Japan-based companies A-commerce Inc. and Global Power Co. formed a tie-up in October to target mid-career Chinese personnel.

They plan to hold a presentation for about 50 Japanese companies in Shanghai by the end of the year and have 500 Japanese organizations signed up within three years. Their service will include introducing Chinese personnel in white-collar jobs at foreign-affiliated companies in China to Japanese companies' main offices in Japan.

Yoshikazu Akiba of A-commerce said Chinese workers, who used to prefer working for U.S. and European companies, were showing more caution since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in autumn 2008.

"A Japanese company that emphasizes job security is greatly appreciated," Akiba said.

Meanwhile, Japanese companies wanting to expand their operations in China are viewing Chinese personnel as critical to the success of their marketing strategies.

"Sales pitches by Japanese staff in China have their limits," an official with a major food company said. "We would like talented Chinese personnel to acquire our corporate culture while working at our main office and then to take the charge of developing new markets in China."

One alleged drawback of hiring Chinese graduates is their penchant for switching jobs, but Uchida at Boston Consulting Group said this was not an issue.

"Many Japanese elite graduates who are not very ambitious types quit in two or three years," he said. "Whether or not Chinese staff stay on depends on their employer."

With the ratio of Japanese college seniors securing job offers hitting a record low 57.6 percent this year, the once remote prospect of competing with foreigners for prized positions at Japanese head offices is now a reality. Fukumoto at Tomy put it baldly: "If we employ more Chinese, that means we have fewer slots for Japanese."

For Uchida, that might not be a bad thing: 'If (recruitment of more foreign personnel) wakes Japanese students and employees to global competition, it would be a success," he said.

(This article was written by Atsushi Okudera and Tokuhiko Saito.)

By Carl Bialik

My print column this week examines the effect on U.S. jobs of the trade deficit with China. Does the massive imbalance between imports and exports cost the U.S. millions of jobs?

A frequently cited report says it has. Dozens of members of Congress signed a letter last month citing the report from the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, that found trade with China has cost the U.S. 2.4 million jobs.

However, some economists and China analysts point out several potential problems with the estimate, including that several countries have run up trade deficits during boom times as they invested in growth — including the U.S., where there has been essentially no correlation between unemployment and trade deficits, overall and with China. The numbers move seemingly in random ways compared to each other.

“By the logic of their argument, any country that runs a trade deficit should experience perpetual loss of jobs and wages, and any country that runs a surplus should experience perpetual gains in jobs and wages,” Arthur Kroeber, head of China research for the economic-research company GaveKal Dragonomics, wrote in an email. “Yet many developing countries run consistent current account deficits (for example South Korea during much of the 1970s and ’80s) and still experience high job and wage growth, while other countries run persistent surpluses yet have stagnant employment and wage growth (e.g. Germany and Japan).”

“Vigorous job creation and larger trade deficits are both hallmarks of strong economic growth,” said John Murphy, vice president of international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who has written critically about the EPI report. Scott Kennedy, a political scientist at Indiana University, said of the claims about China costing U.S. jobs, “China is just a scapegoat.”

Robert Scott, the senior international economist at EPI who produced the numbers, defends the study, pointing out that many factors contribute to economic growth rates, and it is possible for the same factor to drive down both the trade deficit and employment — such as the recession that ended last year in the U.S. That doesn’t mean that a trade deficit causes higher employment. Scott also notes that other studies, like his, have assumed that every dollar of a trade deficit displaces domestic production.

Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which has posted Scott’s findings in an interactive map, said the assumption about displacement of domestic manufacturing is sensible. “There is an extraordinary amount of competition between U.S. production and Chinese production,” Paul said. “A lot of people like to assume that China is making things we don’t make here. That may be true in some areas, but it is not in others.”

Susan Houseman, a senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, Mich., said that Scott’s calculations make more sense than the claim occasionally made in U.S. economic circles — and, recently, by the White House — that increased productivity has backfired on U.S. manufacturing workers. Houseman has found that much of the supposed productivity gain can be chalked up to offshoring of some processes, meaning it was an artificial gain: If production is divided by U.S. workers, but others do some of the producing, U.S. workers would seem to be gaining productivity they really aren’t.

Houseman sees indirect signs that trade deficits may be driving down employment: “Job losses in manufacturing are almost perfectly correlated with growth in import penetration,” Houseman said. “It’s really very striking.”

Ray Fair, an economist at Yale University, prefers using his multicountry econometric model to estimate the potential effect of China’s allowing its currency to appreciate — which, he found earlier this year, would be negligible in terms of U.S. employment. “This is a complicated question, where one needs a complete multicountry model to analyze,” Fair said. He added, of his model, “It’s been extensively tested.” Of his finding, Fair added, “The trade deficit is ‘affected by many things, and it is not sensible to relate, say, the U.S. deficit with China to U.S. employment,’ Fair said.

Paul Krugman, an economist at Princeton University and columnist for the New York Times, wrote on his Times blog last year that his back-of-the-envelope calculation concludes China’s “artificial” trade surplus is costing 1.4 million jobs in the U.S. “If China were to end or reduce that artificial trade surplus, the extra demand would find its way to the advanced countries through a variety of channels, most of them not captured by the Fair model,” Krugman wrote in a statement provided by a New York Times spokeswoman.

Scott and Krugman criticize the assumptions Fair fed into his model. “In my view, there is no evidence that the effects of renminbi revaluation on prices, wealth, real wages or interest rates [in the U.S.] will be significant,” Scott said.

Krugman added, “When I looked at Ray Fair’s estimates, my conclusion was that he was running an exercise that didn’t at all correspond to the current situation.” For instance, Krugman points out that the Fed is running up against the so-called zero lower bound that may keep it from raising interest rates in response to a Chinese currency revaluation.

One thing all three of these methods have in common is that they all seek to describe the relationship between trade and jobs rigorously, with some kind of model or formula. This improves on other efforts that are based on extrapolating from individual cases of companies closing factories and moving their operations offshore, said Catherine L. Mann, an economist at Brandeis University’s business school. She credited the EPI estimate for its “transparent methodology,” but she said it is “one where the underpinning assumptions are not valid.”

EPI’s Scott “made a heroic effort given the enormous data holes” in U.S. statistics about trade, such as which industries imports are being used in, and the price of imports per unit, said Michael Mandel, a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, a moderate Democratic think tank. “I can’t criticize him for the effort he made. He’s answering questions people want to answer.”

Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, an advocacy group for small businesses, said more government-collected data would help shed light on trade’s impact on jobs. “I’d like every multinational company to report, what do they export, what do they import — and what do they source in the U.S., what do they source overseas,” said Tonelson, who wrote about the trade deficit in a New York Times op-ed last month.

Further reading: The conservative Cato Institute and American Enterprise Institute also have criticized the EPI report. The Congressional Research Service analyzed the economic impact of China’s currency intervention in a report earlier this month.

Companies in growing markets like China and India are adding more jobs in North America and Europe, a shift from the usual hiring patterns, says a new study from IBM.

Out today, IBM's new "Working Beyond Borders" study found that growth in jobs is now moving two ways--from emerging economies tapping into more mature markets as well as the more traditional reverse pattern.

The reason for the trend? As more companies expand globally, they're hiring people with the creativity, flexibility, and speed needed to help their expansion, prompting them to increase their staffing in North America, Western Europe, and other mature markets.

Specifically, IBM found that 45 percent of companies in India plan to increase their headcount in North America, while 44 percent will expand in Western Europe. And 33 percent of businesses in China are looking to add staff in North America, while 14 percent will boost headcount in Western Europe.

"The silver lining of globalization is that the shift toward expansion will require companies to redirect their workforce to locations that provide the greatest opportunities, not just the lowest costs, and at the same time, re-imagine their management strategies to reflect an increasingly dynamic workforce," Denis Brousseau, vice president of organization and people for IBM Global Business Services, said in a statement.

Despite this recent trend, much of the increase in hiring over the next three years will still happen in emerging growth regions, such as China, India, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Whichever direction it goes, this new global focus on job growth will force companies to rethink how they attract and manage workers from around the world, according to IBM.
(Credit: IBM)

Beyond the shift in hiring trends, companies are finding that employees with certain "soft" skills, such as social networking and collaboration, can benefit their bottom line. The study showed that companies that outperform financially are 57 percent more likely than underperformers to use social networking and collaboration tools to help their global staff work together more effectively.
To compile its results, IBM interviewed more than 700 chief human resource officers and other senior executives, almost all of them face-to-face, across 61 countries and 32 different industries.

It's an unfortunate fact of a downturn: declining corporate cash flows and slumping confidence usually induce firms to file fewer patents and slash spending on research and development.

Apparently, China didn't get the memo.

As much of the world invested fewer resources in innovation during the global downturn, Chinese firms spent more on innovative efforts, such as R&D and patent and trademark applications, according to a report by a UN agency.

On Wednesday, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said that patent applications in China jumped 18.2 percent in 2008 and another 8.5 percent in 2009. Over the same period, ZTE, China's second-largest telecom equipment maker, boosted R&D spending 44.8 percent.

In the U.S., patent filings fell 11.7 percent in 2008 and 2009, while companies like General Motors, Hewlett Packard and Microsoft slashed their R&D budget by more than 20 percent from 2008 to 2009. In Europe and Japan new patent filings dropped 7.9 and 10.8 percent, respectively, in 2009.

"China is moving up the value chain and rapidly increasing exports based on domestic innovation, so inevitably it is filing an ever-growing number of patent applications," WIPO's Chief told a news conference as the agency announced its latest findings.

China decided years back that it no longer wants to be the sweatshop of the world. The country's recent investments in innovation at a time when loans and venture capital were sparse reflect its ambitions to become an innovation-oriented nation by 2020.

China's penchant for patents may partly explain why it's shifting away from low-cost manufacturing, as the New York Times reports this morning.

According to the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey results released today by Manpower Inc. (NYSE: MAN), hiring expectations in emerging markets -- China, Taiwan, India and Brazil -- continue to outpace the rest of the world. Meanwhile, employer hiring confidence in European countries is mixed with positive job prospects reported in Germany for the quarter ahead. And although hiring plans in the U.S. are stronger compared to one year ago, the cautiously optimistic hiring pace reported for the next three months indicates economic concerns continue to weigh on the minds of American employers.

"We're seeing a multi-speed recovery in the global labor market with talent demand in high gear in many of the emerging markets we survey. Other markets, such as the U.S. and Japan, are still moving forward but can't seem to get out of first gear," said Jeffrey A. Joerres, Chairman and CEO of Manpower Inc. "Employers in many markets continue to struggle with inconsistent demand for their products and services making it difficult to anticipate staff needs. As a result, a flexible workforce strategy will be critical during this point of the recovery cycle."

The Manpower data shows employers in 28 of 36 countries and territories expect positive hiring activity in the fourth quarter, with those in five reporting negative hiring expectations -- an improvement in comparison to the 12 countries reporting negative outlooks 12 months ago. Globally, employers in 32 countries and territories are reporting stronger year-over-year outlooks, with those in China, Taiwan, India and Brazil indicating the strongest fourth-quarter job prospects. Notably, forecasts from Chinese, Swiss and Taiwanese employers are the most optimistic since Manpower began polling there. The weakest hiring plans for the upcoming quarter are reported in Greece, Italy, the Czech Republic, Spain and Ireland.

Across the Asia Pacific region, year-over-year forecasts improve in each of the eight countries and territories surveyed, with forecasts improving from the third quarter in three. Hiring plans in the region are strongest in China, Taiwan and India. Meanwhile, employer hiring plans in Japan are the most conservative in the region, but they are considerably stronger compared to one year ago.

"Continued strong domestic growth is fueling stronger job prospects in all industry sectors in China and Taiwan from three months ago. As a result, the talent wars are waging again as companies struggle to retain the talent they need," said Joerres. "In contrast, Indian employers expect to ease the pace of hiring slightly. Interestingly, our data reveals a bright spot in the Japanese Manufacturing sector, where hiring expectations have improved for six consecutive quarters and are the strongest in two years."

Similar to the third quarter, fourth-quarter hiring expectations remain mixed in the 18 countries surveyed in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. Employers are reporting positive Net Employment Outlooks in 10 countries, but those in 11 expect the pace of hiring to soften from three months ago. However, the year-over-year comparison is more positive with improved Outlooks reported in 15 of 18 countries. Hiring activity in the region is expected to be strongest in Switzerland, Norway and Poland and weakest in Greece and Italy.

"European labor markets have yet to gain real traction due in part to the uncertainty in Greece and Italy. But we are seeing notable improvements across the region in the Finance and Business Services sector, where year-over-year forecasts improve in 15 countries, most notably in Switzerland, Germany and Norway," said Joerres. "The German labor market continues to be resilient; however lack of talent, especially engineers, healthcare professionals and sales staff, is becoming a real issue for employers in many sectors."

Across the 10 countries surveyed in the Americas region, employers anticipate varying degrees of positive hiring activity. Outlooks improve in six countries from three months ago, but improve in all countries when year-over-year comparisons are made. Regional hiring plans are again strongest in Brazil, Peru and Costa Rica and weakest in the U.S., where hiring plans are relatively stable from three months ago but are notably stronger than those reported one year ago.

"Hiring confidence has returned to the majority of the region with employers in Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Panama and Colombia reporting their most optimistic plans of the year," said Joerres. "Brazilian employers in the Services sector continue to create jobs at a rapid pace and in many industry sectors wage arbitrage is becoming an issue for both professional and skilled trades roles. Meanwhile, in the U.S. most of the hiring that was done in the third quarter will be absorbed, yet negative outlooks are reported for just two sectors -- Construction and Government. U.S. job seekers can expect to find the most opportunities in the Wholesale & Retail Trade and Mining sectors in the quarter ahead."

Sina Technology News on July 26 morning news, human resources service providers Zhaopin (????) staged in one day twice removed. And after this dramatic is the removal of an internal message that CTO, executive vice president of duties, and hours later another e-mail letters from the Board of Directors announced the recall inspired CEO, COO and other executives.

Last Friday afternoon, a hair to Zhaopin name of a company's e-mail circulated to all staff, announced the lifting of remaining with the CTO with Tong Luo Yihua, vice president, technical director Zhang spring all the duties, be expelled from the company, but did not give specific reasons. In addition, CFO Guo Jianmin Zhaopin announced the company for personal reasons resigned from office.

Announced four executives left off the outside world caused great concern,but more dramatic is the e-mail sent just a few hours after Zhaopin staff has received a letter from the Board of Directors authorized release message, the content is said Zhao Peng CEO, COO Lei Weiming other four other executives leave.

When the first message sent overseas, the SAN has been linked Zhaopin PR, relevant personnel to confirm the authenticity of the message. Then the said company executives and board of directors has been in a meeting, and said second message does not make a comment. But the source said a decision once the company's internal discussions, the truth will be announced the first time.

Some analysts believe that the message reflects the two main factions to CEO Zhao Peng and Tong, as well as CTO mainly use the contradiction between the factions, which may be the board of directors and investors support. This contradiction caused by a large one of the reasons is the founder of Zhaopin team have long faded, but in the case of foreign-controlled management of easy confusion.

fact this is not the first major personnel changes. Last year in August before the announcement Zhaopin CEO Liu Hao resign from his post, former COO Zhao Peng took over as the new CEO. At that time the industry’s view is that consecutive losses to investors have lost confidence.

Investment in Zhaopin was from Australia and New Zealand’s largest recruitment site SEEK and Australian investment bank Macquarie 110 million U.S. dollars of investment, while the cost of the investment and further diluted share Zhaopin, After the completion of investment now, SEEK, Macquarie and Zhaopin other shareholders structure is 4:3:3.

public information, to December 31, 2008 SEEK shares in Zhaopin close to 56.2%, meaning that SEEK has Zhaopin own initiative. According to Zhao Peng said earlier this year interviewed by the media data, Zhaopin has been achieved in the fourth quarter of profitability. (Tracy)

China's central authorities have set down a more open policy to attract top-notch foreign talents to help promote the economic and social development and global competitiveness of the nation.

According to the newly unveiled National Medium and Long-term Talent Development Plan (2010-2020), the government will work out favorable policies in terms of taxation, insurance, housing, children and spouse settlement, career development, research projects, and government awards for high-calibre overseas talents who are willing to work in China.

Furthermore, the government will also improve the system for giving permanent residence rights to foreigners, explore the potential of a skilled migration program, and work out measures to ensure a talent supply, discovery and appraisal system.

The national plan, a blueprint for creating a highly skilled national work force over the next decade, aims to transform the country from being "labor-rich to talent-intensive."

Wang Huiyao, vice chairman of Beijing-based China Western Returned Scholars Association, said, "The measures outlined are very attractive. They've touched upon various concerns of talents from overseas including personal and career needs."

"The plan is practical and concrete compared with previous documents," said Wang, who help draft the plan.

A program to hire 1,000 overseas top-notch specialists initiated in late 2008 was also incorporated into the new plan as one of the 12 key projects to be completed over the next ten years.

By May this year, 662 people have been recruited under the program, which gives priority to leading scientists who are able to make breakthroughs in key technologies, develop high-tech industries and lead new research areas.

Xiao Mingzheng, director of the Human Resource Development and Management Research Center at Peking University said, "It's preferable to import talents rather than capital or technology."

"As China strives to adjust its economic growth pattern, it has become more important for it to tap others' 'brains'," he said.

"The new policies reflect China's open attitude to personnel recruitment - that is, the country not only exports talents to serve the world but also enables foreign talents to serve China's development," he said.

China's efforts to attract overseas talents have gone beyond the central government level.

The country recruited about 480,000 talents from foreign countries, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan last year, according to the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs.

And about 50,000 Chinese officials and professionals went overseas for various training programs last year.

Li Yuanchao, head of the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, said earlier this year, "Top-notch talents are crucial for improving the core competitiveness of a country, a region, and a company."

"Not only should the central government earnestly carry out its talent recruitment program. Local governments should also develop their own programs to create conditions to allow talents to achieve," he said.

Chinese employers’ hiring plans reached a six-year high as a recovery in the world’s third- largest economy and the Shanghai World Expo boosted demand, a private survey showed.

Manpower Inc., the world’s second-largest provider of temporary workers, said 31 percent of employers expect to expand their workforce in the third quarter, citing a survey of 3,607 companies. A measure of the employment outlook rose to the highest since the survey began in 2005, the company said on its website today.

After job losses in the economic slowdown, “the situation seems to be recovering quickly, and many companies are in urgent need of laborers to meet the increased demand,” said Danny Yuan, managing director for Manpower China. “In regions like the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta, employers’ demand for laborers has resulted in a blue-collar labor shortage.”

Higher demand for workers may fuel pay increases that HSBC Holdings Plc said yesterday are “good news” for the economy because they will boost private consumption, putting a floor under growth. Foxconn Technology Group and Honda Motor Co. have raised wages and local governments have announced increases to minimum pay levels.

The expo is boosting demand for services workers, Yuan said.

Confidence among recruitment companies around the world about the prospects for hiring rose 11% in the five months to May so that 67% now expect revenue growth in the second half of the year, the Association of Executive Search Consultants said Tuesday.

As a result recruitment companies are expected to hire more staff to handle the increased business, with 48% of those people surveyed for the AESC's mid- year member outlook report saying they anticipate hiring more consultants in the second half of 2010.

The healthcare and life sciences sector and the energy and natural resources industries are currently the strongest two areas for hiring and are expected to be among those seeing the most growth in the second half of 2010, the AESC report said. The industrial and financial services sectors are also expected to see some of the biggest recoveries this year, it added.

"The latest results are indicative of an industry regaining strength following the downturn," said Peter Felix, AESC president. "Once again there is talk of a talent shortage in certain industries and functions, even though unemployment levels remain high."

China, India and Brazil are expected to see the greatest scarcity of talent in the second half of 2010 with 64.9% of those surveyed expecting China to experience a lack of personnel, while 37.8% and 37.2% said they thought India and Brazil, respectively, would experience problems, the report showed.

Those people in employment have become slightly more willing to consider making career moves as a result of the improving jobs market, with 45% of recruiters saying senior executives will consider moving jobs, up from 42% at the end of last year.

Graduation season is upon us, and everyone from President Obama to John Grisham is delivering commencement speeches across the country. TIME looks at some of the most successful people to never receive their sheepskins.

1. Bill Gates

The Harvard Crimson called him “Harvard’s most successful dropout” — the rest of the world just calls him ridiculously rich. For more than a decade, Bill Gates has been one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest, men in the world. The son of an attorney and a schoolteacher, Gates entered Harvard in the fall of 1973, only to drop out two years later to found Microsoft with childhood friend Paul Allen. In 2007, more than thirty years after he left Harvard, the co-founder of Microsoft would finally receive his degree (an honorary doctorate) from his alma mater. At the commencement, Gates said, “I’m a bad influence. That’s why I was invited to speak at your graduation. If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today.”

2. Steve Jobs

The Mac, the iPod, heck, even Buzz Lightyear probably wouldn’t have existed had Steve Jobs stayed in school. The future wizard of One Infinite Loop dropped out of Reed College after just six months because of the undue financial strain it placed on his working-class parents’ savings. He would go on to eventually found Apple, NeXT Computer and Pixar, becoming an instrumental force in shaping the landscape of modern culture. However, his brief tenure in academia was not for naught. In a 2005 commencement speech he gave at Stanford University, Jobs credited a calligraphy class he took at Reed College with forming the basis for the typography used in the first Macintosh computer.

3. Frank Lloyd Wright

America’s most celebrated architect spent more time designing colleges than attending them. Frank Lloyd Wright was admitted to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1886, but left after only one year. He would move to Chicago and eventually apprentice under Louis Sullivan, the “father of modernism.” By the time of his passing, Wright’s resume included more than 500 works, most famous of which are Fallingwater and New York City’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

4. Buckminster Fuller

Buckminster Fuller — architect, thinker, inventor, futurist, college dropout. Expelled from Harvard not once, but twice, Fuller’s post-dropout period was anything but successful. He suffered a string of bad business ventures and years of anguish following his daughter’s death. While Fuller could have settled for a less than extraordinary life — he even contemplated suicide — he refused to buck to the bevy of bad breaks. At the age of 32, Fuller set out on a one man quest to change the world for the better. His unorthodox ideas such as the dymaxion (a portmanteau of dynamic maximum tension) house and dymaxion car captivated the nation, while his iconic geodesic domes would bring him international fame and recognition.

5. James Cameron

The Academy Award-winning director followed a circuitous route to Hollywood. Born and raised in Canada, he and his family moved to Brea, California in 1971. It was there that the young Cameron enrolled in Fullerton College to study physics. His academic life did not last long. He would drop out, marry a waitress and eventually become a truck driver for the local school district. It was not until he saw Star Wars in 1977 that Cameron would trade his blue collar career for one creating some of the late 20th-century’s most stunning (and expensive) science-fiction movies.

6. Mark Zuckerberg

Most college students use their dorm rooms to sleep, study, or do things their parents probably don’t want to know about. Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in his. Originally meant only for Harvard students, the popular social networking site quickly spread to the rest of the Ivies and other colleges across the nation. As Facebook’s popularity exploded, Zuckerberg packed up his bags and relocated the fledgling company to Palo Alto, California, forever leaving behind Harvard’s hallowed halls. So far, the decision has worked out pretty well for the twenty-something. According to Forbes, Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in the world, with a 2010 net worth of $4 billion.

7. Tom Hanks

TIME has called Tom Hanks America’s chronicler in chief; Sacramento State can call him their most famous dropout. The storied actor left college to intern full time at the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. There, he learned various aspects of theater from lighting to set design, laying the foundation for his Hollywood career as movie star, producer, director and writer. Not one to forget his own past, in 2009 Hanks helped fund-raise money to help renovate the Cleveland theater where he got his start.

8. Harrison Ford

Apparently a college degree isn’t a prerequisite for flying the Millennium Falcon. Harrison Ford, of Star Wars and Indiana Jones fame, majored in philosophy at Ripon College, but dropped out shortly before graduation. He subsequently landed several small parts in Hollywood productions, but unhappy with such minor roles, turned to a career in professional carpentry instead. Almost ten years later, he would co-star in George Lucas’ 1973 graduation night comedy American Graffiti and subsequently joined Lucas in a galaxy far, far away in the 1977 blockbuster Star Wars.

9. Lady Gaga

Before she was a Gaga, she was a Germanotta. Born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, the artist better known as Lady Gaga attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, but dropped out after just a year to pursue her music career full time. She broke onto the New York club scene with her burlesque performances and was signed to Interscope Records by the age of 20. Her 2008 debut album, The Fame, has had the world going gaga for Gaga ever since.

10.Tiger Woods

In a world where prodigious sports talents tend to forgo higher education altogether for the pros, Tiger Woods chose to continue playing amateur golf at Stanford University as an economics major. Perhaps it was in Econ 101 that he learned the term “opportunity cost,” because his time at Stanford was not long. After two years there, Woods turned pro with his “Hello world” announcement, officially ending his collegiate career. He would go on to become one of the highest paid athletes in the world, earning more than $100 million annually at the height of his career. How?s that for economics?

Time

Genpact, the back-office services provider, on Tuesday said it plans to scale up its operations in China and increase its headcount by 6,500 in that market in the next five years.

"China and Japan are an important market for us. It contributes about 10 per cent to Genpacts overall revenue. We plan to take our headcount in China to 10,000 in the next five years," Genpact CEO Pramod Bhasin told media.

Genpact, at present, has two centres in China which employs about 3,500 people.

The BPO firm today also inked a multi-year deal with Japan's Hikari Tsushin to provide services to Hikari's clients in Japan and China.

Genpact had signed the contract with Hello Communications, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Hikari Tsushin to provide customer service, finance and accounting, IT infrastructure support and back office processing to Hikari.

"The deal with Hikari will allow us to further expand our footprint in the Chinese and Japanese markets," Bhasin said.

He added that the tenure of the deal could be 3-5 years, however, he declined to share details about the size of the deal.

Shigetaro Toyoda, CEO of Hello Communications said, "The integration of the sales and marketing skills of Hikari Tsushin and Genpact's services will enable a faster time-to- market and lower operating costs."

Beijing: In 2008 the US-based online job company Monster Worldwide Inc made headline news when it acquired all of ChinaHR.com, paying $174 million for a remaining 55 percent stake in the Chinese recruitment site.

The acquisition enhanced the strength of the local website and cemented its hold on the No 2 position in China's online recruitment market.

A ccording to leading domestic consultant company IResearch, ChinaHR.com's online recruitment income accounted for 17.9 percent of the industry's total last year. And it is expected to have stronger growth in the next few years, market observers say.

Further success and growth is expected in the years ahead because "Monster is committed to being at the pioneer in service technology and innovation in the sector", said Sal Iannuzzi, company chairman and CEO.

As well, Monster's global network gives ChinaHR.com a big boost because it is the only online recruitment company in the nation with a well-developed international talent database.

Cutting edge

Service, innovation-centered strategy and the global reach of Monster have all spurred ChinaHR's development, Iannuzzi said, noting its patent semantic "6Sense TM" search technology delivers precise matches to both job seekers and employers.

Standard key word search technology might cause a company that needs a veteran accountant to wade through resumes from people who worked as an accountant decades ago - but are now singers, salespeople or teachers.

With technology powered by Monster's 6Sense, recruiters can quickly and precisely find and target candidates who best meet their hiring needs, the CEO said.

The technology also enables job hunters to better fulfill their ambitions.
Iannuzzi said the technology can also significantly help people who have ambitions for a job transition between two disparate industries, a difficult search task for other online sites.

The combination of media, offline recruitment and campus recruitment all give ChinaHR an edge, he said.

Campus recruitment by ChinaHR.com, a key component of its business, has won applause from not only customers in China but also internationally.

Iannuzzi said Monster is promoting ChinaHR's approaches of campus recruitment to its branches throughout the world.

"We are keen on listening to our customers and offering tailored services to fulfill their needs efficiently," the CEO noted.

As well, resources from Monster in some 60 countries globally offer ChinaHR an advantage in aiding China's State-owned enterprises (SOEs) scout talent overseas.

As China has begun to encourage more SOEs and banks to branch out overseas, they face a challenge finding senior professionals.

An example was a bank last year. It took only three weeks for ChinaHR to find 14 qualified overseas professionals it needed.

Before such a search may have cost the bank millions of yuan by hiring senior consultant companies to travel overseas for months at a time.

BEIJING, Dec 12 (Reuters) - In the first 10 months of the year China already exceeded the number of new jobs it aimed to create in 2009, state media said on Saturday, in another sign the country is emerging from the global economic crisis.

China created 9.4 million jobs in urban areas in the first 10 months, exceeding the government's target of 9 million new jobs for the year, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

It added that about 4.4 million laid-off workers found new work in the January-October period, some 88 percent of the full-year goal of 5 million.

Officials had estimated that more than 20 million migrant workers lost jobs when the global financial crisis hit the Chinese economy, making job creation a priority for the government in its stimulus spending.

On Tuesday, the ministry estimated that China's stimulus spending was on track to create at least 24 million jobs, offering its rosiest employment outlook since the financial crisis struck last year.

A recovery in employment is an essential precondition for Beijing to wind down its ultra-loose pro-growth policies adopted when the global financial turmoil devastated Chinese exports, leading factories to cut millions of jobs. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

CHANGCHUN, Jan 03, 2010 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The global economic meltdown impacted many of the clients of BT Frontline, which provides outsourcing services for the IT systems of docks and logistics companies. But its General Manager, Lawrence Low, is still satisfied with the company's performance amid the financial crisis and confident about its future.

China's service outsourcing industry, mostly about software outsourcing, bounced back in the second half of the year from a hard time of three months caused by shrinking demand from the global market, according to Yu Hengzhuang, vice president of Dalian Software Park.

"We have gained access to high-end market and recently entered the Middle East market, which more than offset the impact of the global downturn," Low said.

"Our business not only survived, it grew and thrived," Low said with a smile, keeping the exact figures as business secret.

RAPIDLY DEVELOPING INDUSTRY The software outsourcing park in Dalian, the industrial hub in China, attracted 63 new clients in 2009, bringing the overall number of businesses in the park to more than 400, and the park's total sales are expected to top 20 billion yuan, up 32.9 percent year on year.

The sales of Dalian's software outsourcing business grew from 200 million yuan (29.3 million U.S. dollars) to more than 30 billion yuan in the past 10 years. A total of 700 companies are in the industry, including 300 joint ventures and more than 40 Fortune 500 companies.

In the first ten months, the industry's sales in Dalian grew by 33 percent to 33.7 billion yuan and its export grew by 34 percent to 1.1 billion U.S. dollars.

While Dalian has become a world famous hub of software outsourcing after Thomas Fridman compared it with Bangalore in India, another less known industrial hub with equally fast pace in east China's Jiangsu Province, is taking shape.

The contract value of Jiangsu's software outsourcing industry reached 3.28 billion U.S. dollars in the first 10 months of the year, a growth of 174 percent. The province has 2,470 companies in the industry, with 290,000 employees, according to statistics from the provincial department of commerce.

The provincial capital Nanjing's software outsourcing industry had a contract value of 2.1 billion U.S. dollars in the first 11 months of the year, growing by 239 percent.

"The income of China's software industry, which software outsourcing takes a major part, has been growing by 38 percent annually and its revenue is expected to top 1 trillion yuan in 2010," said Hu Kunshan, vice chairman of China Software Industry Association.

China's software industry earned 757.3 billion yuan in 2008, and the figure is expected to reach 900 billion yuan in 2009.

BOOSTING EMPLOYMENT The rapid development of outsourcing industry bears great significance in sustaining economic growth, restructuring economy, stabilizing export and boosting employment, said Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan during a visit to Dalian in November.

More than 60,000 people are working in the software outsourcing industry in Dalian.

China's outsourcing industry recruited 690,000 new employees, 460,000 of whom were college graduates, in the first 11 months of 2009, according to statistics released on a national conference on commerce.

China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security expects the outsourcing industry to create 1.2 million new jobs in five years, including 1 million jobs for college graduates.

At the end of Sept. 2009, 1.42 million people were working in 8,060 outsourcing companies in China, said Qian Fangli, deputy head of the foreign investment department of the Ministry of Commerce.

The software outsourcing companies in China have enough programmers but lack mature project managers and decision makers, who are on the top of the talent pyramid, said Yu Hengzhuang, vice president of Dalian Software Park.

The gap in talent pool limited the size of such companies to less than 300 people, which is a human resource threshold to carry out core projects with high added value. "That's why Chinese companies are now the lowest ring of the world software outsourcing chain," Yu added.

The Chinese central government will start its annual recruitment of new staff in mid October, offering about 15,000 positions, said the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security here Monday.

About 130 departments of the central government and affiliated institutions will recruit new staff, said a statement issued by the ministry.

The ministry will start taking in applications from Oct. 15 to 24 and an examination will be held on Nov. 29 at the capitals of provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities and several big cities, the statement said.

The departments prefer people with grassroots working experience, it said. "About 70 percent of the positions will be taken by people with at least two years of working experience at the grassroots level."

A quota will be provided for young people who finish their service in the government programs of working at remote and less developed regions and villages after college graduation, it said. But the statement did not release how much it will be.

"We hope high quality talents with adequate grassroots experience will work for the central government," said a ministry official in charge of the recruitment.

The application will be done on Internet.

L'OREAL is still recruiting fresh graduates here amid the tough economic environment, as it opts to cut costs by improving efficiency instead of scrapping jobs.

'Clearly we have to look at cost cutting but we're not looking at cutting heads,' said L'Oreal's executive vice-president for human resources Geoff Skingsley.

'We are not stopping recruiting of graduates. We have a steady long-term approach to recruitment.'

L'Oreal has a long-standing relationship with the National University of Singapore, he said.

However, the international cosmetics group is scaling back on recruiting more experienced staff.

Other ways in which it is containing costs include cutting travel budgets.

Despite the downturn, Asia remains a bright spot for the group.

'It's a high-growth region,' said Mr Skingsley.

'It's clear from a population point of view, from retail sophistication, demographic trends - all of these things here work in the favour of the beauty industry.'

Markets such as China and Thailand deliver steady growth, while newer markets such as Vietnam offer lots of potential.

In FY 2008, L'Oreal's Asian sales jumped 16.3 per cent year on year to 1.84 billion euros (S$3.59 billion). It reported consolidated sales of 17.542 billion euros for the year.

Based on the group's strong brands and innovative efforts, Mr Skingsley is upbeat about L'Oreal's ability to weather the economic storm.

'Our industry is one that retains relevance even when times are tough,' he said. A portfolio of 26 brands means a weaker performance by some is offset by a stronger showing by others.

L'Oreal remains committed to nurturing local talent. 'We take pride in giving international opportunities to people so they can gain exposure in other markets and bring that exposure back to their own markets,' Mr Skingsley said.

For instance, L'Oreal Singapore's new managing director Chris Neo is a Singaporean who has been with the company for 14 years.

L'Oreal employs 63,000 people worldwide, including 350 in Singapore.

Nokia has announced more job cuts, and they’re unlikely to be the last. On March 17, the company said it is eliminating 1,700 jobs, including about 700 in Finland. The announcement comes a month after Nokia said it was closing a research and development center in Finland, while imposing temporary layoffs at a Finnish handset factory.

But more cuts will be needed for Nokia to meet its goal of saving $900 million, says analyst Jari Honko at eQ Bank in Helsinki. He estimates the measures disclosed so far will save about $390 million. So Nokia isn’t even halfway there.

Compared to what’s going on in some other industries, the scale of the latest job cuts is modest—though that is certainly no consolation to the Nokia employees affected. The 1,700 jobs, including about 700 in Finland, represent only about 1% of Nokia’s total workforce. It’s also worth remembering that Nokia increased its headcount by 16,000 people in 2008, so the most recent round of cuts represents less than two months of recent hiring.

Most Nokia watchers still believe that the company’s scale and history of innovation will enable it to emerge from the downturn stronger than competitors such as Motorola. But 2009 will be a perilous year for Nokia. The company lost market share in smartphones to Apple and Research In Motion in the fourth quarter (though Nokia may have gained some share back after rolling out its touch-screen 5800 XpressMusic handset in recent months). Growth in emerging markets has stalled. Nokia Siemens Networks, the company’s telco equipment unit, faces a strong challenge from China’s Huawei.

Nokia investors can only hope that the company will show the same pluck and creativity that has rescued it from big setbacks in the past.

Senior executives at nearly a quarter of Chinese companies would see no increase in their compensation packages this year, a survey by human resources consulting firm, Mercer, has found.

In all, 59 companies in China were included in the survey, of which 76 percent were listed companies and 39 percent, multinationals.

Around 34 percent of the surveyed companies said executive bonuses for 2008 would decrease. The average bonus level in Asia was 40 percent for 2008.

The global financial crisis has pushed companies to review executive compensation mechanisms. This is being done to tighten the relationship between executive pay and company strategy.

Around 49 percent of companies in China may adjust their performance evaluation standards in the next 12 months. Nearly 33 percent said they would adjust long-term evaluation standards, the survey revealed.

About 71 percent of the companies surveyed said they had a long-term incentive plan designed to retain talent. Due to the sluggish market, around 14 percent of the companies said the value of their long-term incentive plan (that will be met this year) would be lowered.

Mercer conducted similar surveys in other Asian nations, including India, South Korea, Japan and Singapore.

"In Asia, one-third of the companies surveyed said their senior executives' salaries wouldn't increase in 2009. The proportion in China is a little smaller than the average, indicating that the country is less impacted by the financial crisis," said Zheng Wei, managing director for the Asia executive remuneration business at Mercer.

"Considering the deferred impact on China's market, we expect more companies in China to take similar measures to limit senior executives' pay this year," Zheng added.

Ma Mingzhe, the chairman of Ping An Insurance (Group) Co, received the highest pay package for 2007 in the financial industry, at 66 million yuan. This was a nearly four-fold jump from his 2006 salary and was widely criticized.

About two thirds of Ma's salary in 2007 came from the long-term incentive plan. "Because of the financial crisis, companies should pay much more attention to the validity and rationality of the salary mechanism and make it palatable to staff and public supervisors," said Zheng.

BEIJING (Xinhua) -- McDonald's China announced on Wednesday an expansion plan to set up 175 new outlets and create more than 10,000 jobs this year on the Chinese Mainland despite global economic downturn.

The expansion was the largest of its kind ever made by McDonald's across the world.

"The move will bring more opportunities for cooperation to food-related industries in China," said McDonald's China CEO Jeffrey Schwartz.

The US-based food chain store group has 50 suppliers in China, with more than 95 percent of its food materials coming from local market.

On the same day, the group announced its decision to launch a 16.5 yuan (about $2.4) discount meal in its Chinese outlets.

"The price is even lower than that of a similar product in this market a decade ago," said Schwartz.

He added the company's management of material supply and its increasing presence in China helped cost control and made the big discount possible.

McDonald's has opened more than 1,050 outlets in China in the past two decades.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has reportedly shortlisted about 840 executives from the US financial sector to work in China.

The CSRC is on a mission to the US to recruit about 1,700 such executives, mostly ethnic Chinese, threatened by the economic crisis.

The commission's team is now in Chicago after interviewing 150 candidates in New York from Jan 17 to 19.

Another team, commissioned by 20 financial institutions from Shanghai, was in the US last month.

The ongoing overseas drive will not be the last, a CSRC official said, because the China Banking Regulatory Commission, China Insurance Regulatory Commission and the People's Bank of China are planning similar missions to the US.

The CSRC recruits will get one year to adapt to China's working environment. During that period, they will work as research consultants for CSRC's capital market planning and development committee.

After a year, they can opt to work for CSRC's other divisions, or the Shanghai or Shenzhen stock exchanges - or choose to continue their research work.

"Faced with uncertain times, many overseas Chinese in the US financial sector are looking for openings back home. They just need a channel to do so," said Chen Xunyong, chairman of Wall Street Ren, one of the largest financial associations of ethnic Chinese in the US.

Over 100,000 jobs were lost in the US financial sector in 2008, and more are likely to be cut this year, Challenger Gray & Christmas Inc, a Chicago-based placement agency, has said.

But not everyone has welcomed the overseas recruitment drive. For instance, Cai Jiaqi, of Shanghai's municipal committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, advises caution.

"Some overseas experts may use the 'financial alchemy' they have learned on Wall Street to harm, rather than benefit, Chinese companies," Cai said.

Top policymarkers will convene today to discuss how to grapple with the challenge of ensuring at least 8 percent economic growth next year while at the same time pushing forward with the nation's economic restructuring, economists have said.

The annual Central Economic Work Conference, to be held from today to Wednesday in Beijing, will set the tone for next year's economic policy. The three-day event is expected to shed more light on how the government will use fiscal and monetary measures to bolster employment and domestic demand, while reducing excessive dependence on exports.

"The meeting will detail measures for achieving at least 8 percent growth in 2009, the minimum required to keep the unemployment situation under control," said Song Hong, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). Song was one of the two economists who attended a Nov 28 meeting with top Party officials to discuss economic priorities for 2009.

The nation's economic growth dropped to 9 percent in the third quarter, compared with 11.4 percent for 2007. The global economic slowdown may even drag down China's growth to 7.5 percent in 2009, the lowest in two decades, the World Bank forecast earlier.

Such growth, considered high for many economies, is however not deemed enough for a nation that needs to churn out 10 million jobs for fresh job seekers each year. Over the past months, a number of factories in the costal export bases have closed down, leading to the layoffs of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers.

The bleak situation has led the government to unveil a host of measures such as a $586-billion stimulus package and hefty cuts in interest rates to jack up domestic demand.

Analysts said the government may elaborate at the conference on how it plans to finance the massive stimulus package, which is critical to make up for declining foreign demand.

Zhang Ping, minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, said earlier that the package could bolster annual GDP growth by 1 percentage point by 2010. Previous statistics show 1 percentage point in GDP growth could create about 1 million jobs.

"Policymakers may put forward further fiscal and monetary stimulus measures," Song said. "The $586 billion package may prove insufficient, given the worsening world economy."

It was reported earlier that policymakers would also discuss raising the threshold of personal income tax from 2,000 yuan to 3,000 yuan a month. The move, combined with tax cuts already announced for local businesses, is expected to boost domestic consumption and corporate investment.

Some analysts also expect the yuan to start to depreciate after the conference, which could benefit the nation's struggling exporters.

While most analysts are looking at the conference for more pro-growth measures, some say policymakers will also reiterate the message that they have no intention of delaying the transformation of the country's development pattern.

"The current crisis could be an opportunity to reduce the economy's excessive reliance on exports," Zhao Tao, deputy secretary-general of the Policy Research Office of the CPC Central Committee, wrote in commentary published on Saturday in Outlook Weekly, a publication of the Xinhua News Agency.

According to Zhao, the nation's polices will be directed at boosting domestic demand, consumption in particular, rather than low-end manufacturing for exports.

And the nation will strive to reduce its dependence on foreign trade, as a share of GDP, from 60 percent last year to 40 percent by 2020 and eventually to less than 25 percent.

The government will also unveil more measures to encourage consumption, which should account for about 75-80 percent of the GDP by 2020, Zhang said.

Final consumption, which includes household and community spending, now makes up about a half of the nation's economy, compared with an average of 70 percent in developing countries and 80 percent in developed economies. This forces China to rely heavily on foreign demand, which also makes it vulnerable to economic downturns abroad.

"Policymakers should make clear that growth should not come at the expense of a delay of the nation's economic restructuring," said Zhang Xiaojing, an economist with the CASS, the country's top think tank. "Or we risk repeating today's plight in a few years."

GUANGZHOU - Sun Xiaogang is more familiar with studying the works of famous Chinese writers such as Lu Xun, but now he is swotting up on how to make the best cuts of pork.

Chen Sheng, chairman of Guangdong Tiandi Food Group, gives postgraduates tips on how to sell pork on Thursday in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. [China Daily]

Sun was one of 35 postgraduates hired by Guangdong Tiandi Food Group who worked in markets throughout the city.

The postgraduate student majoring in Chinese literature at Guangzhou's Sun Yat-sen University, will graduate from the school in the summer of next year.

"We do not have specific requirements regarding what they learn, but our one requirement is that all applicants are postgraduates," a manager at the company surnamed Lin told China Daily.

To win the post, Sun sold pork in the market for three days.

The 35 successful applicants signed agreements with the company on Thursday, meaning that they can formally start working as soon as they complete their studies.

After they start work, they still need to sell pork in markets for at least two months, Lin said.

"This is training for all of our new employees," she said.

After the two months, they will be appointed to managerial posts, earning between 80,000 yuan ($12,000) and 100,000 yuan a year, she said.

"The job market is very tough this year. Among all of the students of the Chinese literature postgraduate department at our school, I am the first one to get a job," Sun said.

In contrast, most of last year's batch of postgraduates had no problem finding jobs, he said.

Sun said he did not mind having to work in the market as a pork seller, given the current poor state of the job market. In addition, the firm has offered him a great opportunity, he said.

Li Xiaolu, director of Guangdong education department last month warned students who are going to graduate from college and graduate school next year that the job market they will face will be the toughest in three decades.

He encouraged students not to set their sights too high, adding that working in less-developed areas or setting up their own businesses were two options open to them.

While Shanghai tries to lure top overseas professionals, representatives of 247 companies in Zhejiang will be visiting the city to attract some its workers to the province.

Zhejiang is offering more than 5,000 jobs at a fair to be held in Shanghai on Saturday.

The province is seeking managers, administrative directors, executive vice-presidents and vice-presidents.

"There are 50 to 60 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from Wenzhou participating at this job fair, with several hundred positions available," Zhou Dewen, chairman of the Wenzhou SMEs development promotion federation, said yesterday.

"Wenzhou is keen on attracting professionals from Shanghai," Zhou said.

He said it is part of an overall plan to attract 600,000 mid- to high-level professionals.

"Although many SMEs have been hit by a drop in overseas orders due to the current financial crisis, it is still of vital importance to recruit and retain good people," Zhou said.

Zhejiang is offering a number of perks in its recruit drive - granting of residential status, subsidized education for children, and spouse employment. "We are offering a salary package 10 to 15 percent higher than anywhere else in China," Zhou said.

The Shanghai University of Finance & Economics (SUFE) has urged its students to attend the job fair.

Ruan Shan, a second-year SUFE student majoring in tourism management, said that her schoolmates, mostly finance majors, are suffering greatly from the global financial crisis.

"Even those few corporations that are continuing to recruit, have drastically cut down on numbers," she said.

Although there is still more than six months to go before graduation, Ruan and her classmates have attended many job interviews, but have received no offers.

Ruan said she will attend the job fair. "I have lowered my expectations. All I want is just a job here, so long as it pays about 3,000 yuan, ($440) after tax," she said.

BEIJING, Nov 23 (Reuters) - The Beijing city government has offered a subsidy to firms willing to give a job to laid-off workers, Chinese media said on Sunday, in the latest instance of local governments trying to combat rising risks of unemployment.

Companies willing to employ the unemployed could get up to 10,000 yuan a year per worker for the next three to five years, according to a report by the China News Service, citing the capital's labour bureau.

Faced with the prospect of declining orders for the export sector, China's central government has announced a 4 trillion yuan stimulus package which has been matched by 10 trillion yuan in projects announced by several provinces.

Local governments, which must fight to preserve jobs or run the risk of potentially destabilizing unemployed workers, have announced a series of ad hoc policies.

Hubei Province, in central China, earlier this month ordered state-owned companies to reduce salaries before cutting staff, the Xinhua news agency reported on Nov. 18. Large and medium-sized state-owned companies would need to seek government approval for lay-offs involving at least 50 people, it said.

In southern China, workers at some shuttered factories have had their unpaid back wages guaranteed by local governments, often in direct response to protests.

The export hub of Dongguan, in Southern China, in October set up a 1 billion yuan rescue fund for small and medium-sized businesses hurt by the global crisis.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Global accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers PWC.UL plans to hire about 2,000 graduates in China in 2009, part of its long-term plan to expand in the country despite the global credit crunch, its top China head said on Monday.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the world's "Big Four" auditing firms, also plans to retain this pace of hiring for the next three to five years and will open new offices in the vast country "very soon" to support its rapid business growth, said Frank Lyn, Beijing-based China Markets Leader of PwC.

Lyn also noted that Chinese companies with ambitions to expand in the West through mergers and acquisitions could wait another six to nine months when deals are expected to be cheaper.

"The current economic crisis is something that everyone is very, very concerned about," Lyn told Reuters in an interview in Shanghai, China's financial hub.

"But if you take a longer-term view and the fact that we're here to stay, we are not just hiring for now but ready to train our people for the next five to 10 years," he said.

On average, it takes three to five years to groom a graduate to the level of a senior associate in PwC, Lyn added.

Last year, PwC hired 1,800 graduates and 800 experienced executives in China, Lyn said, adding it would be difficult to forecast how many experienced staff would be hired next year because the market environment will be different.

PwC has around 11,000 employees in China, Hong Kong and Macau where the firm operates a total of 13 offices.

Globally, PwC runs offices in 153 countries with more than 155,000 staff.

In China, PwC's major rivals include Ernst & Young ERNY.UL, Deloitte & Touche DLTE.UL and KPMG KPMG.UL, while it is also facing growing challenges from smaller local firms as China's Ministry of Finance is keen to strengthen the country's own accounting industry.

LET VALUATIONS SETTLE

PwC became the official auditor for the listing of Bank of China (601988.SS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) (3988.HK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) in 2006, China's top foreign exchange lender, which marked one of the world's biggest initial public offering of shares that year.

Besides Bank of China, many Chinese clients of PwC are big state-owned enterprises such as PetroChina Co Ltd (601857.SS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and China United Telecommunications Co Ltd (600050.SS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

Big Asian firms, especially from China and Japan, are widely expected by Wall Street to make investments in the near future in the United States, where companies such as General Electric Co (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) or 3Com (COMS.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) are keen to lure foreign capital to support growth amid the credit crunch.

Chinese companies "should not stop doing so but should really pause and let the valuations settle," said Lyn, referring to firms with ambition to expand abroad.

"We still believe we have to go out there and do the outbound investment for a variety of reasons -- buying technology, expertise, market share and so on," he said.

"You'll see in six to nine months, the activities will pick up and that's my personal view purely from the value perspective," he added.

BEIJING, Nov 07, 2008 China's online recruiting websites lured 118.726 million individual members and 7.65 million company members as of Q3 2008, respectively leaping 70% and 34% from a year ago, according to a recent report by technology, media and telecom (TMT) market researcher Analysys International.
The top three recruiting websites, 51job, Inc. (Nasdaq: JOBS), ChinaHR.com Corporation, and Zhaopin.com respectively had 37.10 million, 23.15 million, and 14.90 million registered job hunters, as well as 1.01 million, 1.038 million, and 420,000 company members.

Efficient browsing time of Chinese online recruiting websites increased to 16.22 million hours in September from 14.11 million in August, representing an increase of 15%. And the number is forecast to grow further in October, according to an earlier report.

Monthly coverage index increased 4.1% from the comparable period one year ago. The top six recruiting websites all saw their efficient browsing hours climb during the period. Yingjiesheng.com, a recruiting website especially for new graduates, witnessed its efficient browsing hours rise drastically by 273.7%.

A group of talented graduates flew in from Beijing this month, to take part in a flagship work experience scheme. This joint UK-China Government initiative gives top Chinese graduates the opportunity to learn about UK culture and working life.

The scheme, which was announced by Prime Minister Gordon Brown during a visit to China in 2004, was set up to strengthen education and business links between China and the UK. Over 160 graduates have since taken up internships around the UK.

Thirty-one of the newest interns were welcomed at a reception organised by GTI Recruiting Solutions, at the Barbican in London. The graduates were fresh from spending two weeks at Regents College on a special induction to working life in the UK.

Employers and current interns were on hand to offer advice at the reception event. Philip Morgan from the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills congratulated the graduates and advised them to, “work hard and make the most of their internship, making sure they visited as much of the country as possible during their stay.”

The candidates went through an intense selection process to be awarded a place on the programme, and are out to impress. For most, it is their first opportunity to experience life outside China and to gain work experience. They are very enthusiastic about their placements and the experiences they will have in the UK.

Intern Nan Zhang, explained why the programme means so much to her: “One of my friends once told me that ‘Life is a journey. Enjoy the ride’. For me, the reception event formally brought me into the field of work in the UK. This is a brand new journey for me to enjoy and an exciting adventure for me to attempt.’

A host of UK businesses are taking part, offering paid internships in a range of job functions, from marketing and HR, through to engineering, finance and project management. Employers are impressed with their interns, and their businesses are gaining much from the initiative. Paula Quinton-Jones, Graduate Resourcing & Development Manager for Europe at Standard Chartered Bank, who has taken on four interns, says “We’re delighted with the calibre of our interns – they are already making a fantastic contribution to our business”.

This is echoed by the recruitment team at Swiss Re who are set to expand in China, “We have launched an Asia Development Programme and a global graduate programme that includes China – so the UK-China Graduate Work Experience Programme is an ideal way to raise our profile among graduates in China.”

Employers offering the latest internships are Antonov, Associated Newspapers, British Sugar, Diageo, Euromoney, Halcrow, KL Communications, Lawson Dodd, Mazars, Norton Rose, Pinsent Mason, PwC, Rolls–Royce, Standard Chartered and Unilever.

The recruitment process is managed by GTI Recruiting Solutions, on behalf of the UK Government. As well as ensuring employers are matched with the graduates with the right skills and experience, GTI Recruiting Solutions takes care of all the administration required to bring the interns to the UK and provide pastoral care during their time here.

“New employers from all sectors are always welcome to the programme. If you need English-speaking talent with Chinese language skills, a strong education and a powerful will to succeed then let us know. We deal with all visa issues to make life easy for supporting employers and offer pastoral care for the interns outside the work place,” says GTI Recruiting Solutions Director Paul Clark, “Our aim here is to ensure the employers have the opportunity to offer work experience to graduate talent they are unlikely to reach. We have been hugely impressed by the hunger of these graduates and the determination to succeed.”

China's human resources authorities say the worsening global financial conditions have begun to weigh on the country's job market. That's the message released at a press conference on Thursday. But officials denied rumors that there have been massive cuts in employees

According to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the employment situation for 2008 as a whole, is stable. Yin Weimin noted that one of the ministry's top concerns is the ripple effect of the global economic malaise. It has forced increasing numbers of small and medium-sized enterprises to close and caused job losses, especially after October. He said the government is taking measures to maintain employment stability.

In the first ten months, the number of new employees totaled 10.2 million, slightly more than the full-year target of 10 million. And the urban unemployment rate was 4 percent, below the government's target of about 4.5 percent for the whole year. However, the future picture might be gloomier than the current statistics indicate.

Three years ago, 3.38 million teenagers went off to college, hoping that higher education would lead to a bright future.

These days, many of those students are cutting class to attend jobs fairs, which began Sunday in Tianjin and Dalian and will be opening in various cities across the country this week, with some 530,000 jobs on offer.

According to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, students majoring in business management, electronics and information, economics, engineering, foreign languages, construction and architecture, medicine, law, transportation, and chemistry and pharmaceuticals have the best chance of landing a job.

Despite the ministry's upbeat announcement, the job prospects for this year's college graduates are, frankly, not too bright.

The world is suffering from a global credit crunch. It seems virtually no country will escape economic recession.

In the US alone, millions of families may lose their homes. Consumer spending has ground to a halt, meaning that there will be far less demand for products from China. Already, as orders decline and exports shrink, tens of thousands of enterprises have closed down, while many others have cut back their production and employment.

Last year, 34.2 percent of China's 3.5 million college graduates landed jobs with private businesses. How many such jobs will be available this year?

Some 350 businesses have listed about 30,000 positions on a job-placement website for university graduates. In the same period last year, 450 enterprises offered 50,000 jobs.

No wonder both the Internet and traditional media are filled with advice for worried job-seekers. Unfortunately, much of this advice raises unrealistically high hopes, hopes that in many cases are destined to be dashed.

Personally, I believe there is too much emphasis on starting salaries. In a recent online poll, only 3.81 percent of prospective college graduates said they did not care about starting salary, and less than 10 percent said they'd accept a starting salary of less than 1,500 yuan.

It has been suggested that the government set a minimum salary for college graduates. While I don't think college graduates should enjoy a special minimum salary, the state at least should compile accurate information about the job market and provide it to graduates in a timely manner.

Colleges and universities, too, must shoulder more responsibility for helping job-seekers. Institutions of higher learning should not forget the heady days three years ago, when they claimed their employment rate was somewhere around 99 percent.

Ultimately, however, the responsibility for their future rests on the graduates themselves. They must think hard about what they want to do and make realistic choices as they look for jobs.

Frankly, the attitude of some college graduates leaves a lot to be desired. Back in the 1980s, I remember one new tour guide telling a colleague that she couldn't care less whether the foreign tourists she was looking after caught a cold or not. Such attitudes are intolerable in any workplace.

Over the years, I've helped quite a number of talented young people join China Daily. They came with a clear interest in writing for a newspaper. Their first assignments were often not the challenging, important tasks they dreamed off, but they persevered. One young colleague of mine worked the night shift for three months for free, just to get a job.

Eventually, those who showed devotion, discipline, and creativity won the trust of the editors. They are the ones who have been steadfast in their work and have become good reporters and editors.

To get a good job, today's graduates have only themselves to depend on.

The Minister of Human Resources and Social Security says the global financial crisis has had a negative impact on the domestic job situation. But Yin Weimin is confident of achieving the country's whole-year employment goals.

According to figures from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the supply of new jobs in China in the first three quarters fell year-on-year. While growth in the number of new employees has started to slow.

He says the most vulnerable groups during this financial crisis are workers in export and labor-intensive fields. As the economy slows, the impact will be felt in the fourth quarter and the first half of next year. But he says he is confident in achieving this year's goals of creating 10 million jobs and reemploying 10 million laid-off workers.

Yin Weimin, Ministry of Human Resources & Social Security said "By the end of the year, the employment and social security goals, which were set in Premier Wen Jiabao's government work report, will be met."

In the first nine months of the year, 9.4 million workers found jobs in urban areas, and 4 million laid-off workers found new jobs.

Minister Yin says the country's sound and stable economic fundamentals will guarantee employment and social security. For example, the GDP growth rate for the first three quarters in Guangdong Province was 10.4 percent.

To help increase employment, the government will adopt a series of measures, like providing small loans to support the development of labor-intensive companies and encourage the creation of new businesses.

BEIJING, Nov 07, 2008 --

China's online recruiting websites lured 118.726 million individual members and 7.65 million company members as of Q3 2008, respectively leaping 70% and 34% from a year ago, according to a recent report by technology, media and telecom (TMT) market researcher Analysys International.

The top three recruiting websites, 51job, Inc. (Nasdaq: JOBS), ChinaHR.com Corporation, and Zhaopin.com respectively had 37.10 million, 23.15 million, and 14.90 million registered job hunters, as well as 1.01 million, 1.038 million, and 420,000 company members.

Efficient browsing time of Chinese online recruiting websites increased to 16.22 million hours in September from 14.11 million in August, representing an increase of 15%. And the number is forecast to grow further in October, according to an earlier report.

Monthly coverage index increased 4.1% from the comparable period one year ago. The top six recruiting websites all saw their efficient browsing hours climb during the period. Yingjiesheng.com, a recruiting website especially for new graduates, witnessed its efficient browsing hours rise drastically by 273.7%.

SHANGHAI (AFP) — Spotting an opening in the global fight for talent, China's ambitious financial institutions are planning recruiting trips to London and Wall Street on the wounded financial titans' home turf.

Sovereign fund China Investment Corporation has begun a global search, multi-billion dollar Chinese-French fund Fortune SGAM plans interviews on Wall Street and Shanghai's government is headed to London and New York next month with job offers in hand.

"There are layoffs on Wall Street since the crisis but China's financial industry is still in its infancy and is hungry for talent," Pei Changjiang, chief executive of the Fortune SGAM Fund, told AFP.

It is estimated that the economic turmoil could lead to 165,000 job losses in New York over the next two years, while British think tank Oxford Economics predicts 194,000 job cuts in London over the same period.

But from Shanghai the message to the brightest finance minds is unmistakable: China is hiring.

Han Zheng, mayor of the China's rapidly growing economic hub, has previously said by 2010 -- when Shanghai hosts the World Expo -- the city will have an infrastructure worthy of an international financial centre. By 2020, he said, it will be one.

Since the financial crisis, city officials are saying that could now come even sooner.

"The crisis has presented a rare lesson and opportunity and generally it will help accelerate the establishment of Shanghai as a global financial hub," said the city's deputy mayor in charge of economic affairs, Tu Guangshao.

"The US is a fatty and needs to take diet pills but in contrast China is still skinny... It needs to build a strong body," the former vice-chairman of China's securities watchdog wrote in an opinion piece in the official China Business newspaper.

More than 600 financial institutions had offices in Shanghai at the beginning of the year but finance jobs account for only 2.4 percent of the 9.1 million-strong workforce, compared to 11 percent in London and 12.7 percent in New York.

"More foreign financial institutions will be willing to operate in China, where financial service is in short supply, as their business at home contracts," said Fang Xinghai, director of the city's Financial Services Office.

The city government will be recruiting for more than 80 positions in leading banks, insurers, securities firms and asset management companies, Fang said.
Meanwhile the 200-billion dollar China Investment Corporation, or CIC, advertised more than 30 positions ranging from fixed-income investment to stock analysis.
SGAM, a joint venture between state-run steelmaker Shanghai Baosteel Group's investment arm and French bank Societe Generale, confirmed it was sending a team to the United States to look for good quality hires but would not say how many, or who the ideal candidates might be.

"The actions being taken by these Chinese firms are clearly a good move that prepares for the recovery and maximises people's value through the hard times," said Jenny Li, a Greater China managing director of Hewitt Associates.
The biggest deterrent for the finance world's smartest is likely to be the overregulation and the bureaucracy that comes with working for firms that are ultimately controlled by the state or state-run firms, experts said.

"Financial experts are unlikely to want to come to work in a state-owned enterprise unless that enterprise has a tremendous amount of autonomy. I'm not sure CIC for instance has that autonomy," said Menzie Chinn, an economist at University of Wisconsin.

However, with 1.9 trillion dollars in foreign reserves, China is in an unrivalled position to pursue its ambitions to expand its financial and that presents an amazing opportunity to deal-makers, said Linda Stewart, head of Epoch, a Boston-based financial services recruiter.

"At this time China is holding all the cards -- and all the US currency," she said.

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has announced that it is to increase its TD-SCDMA trained engineers to over 1,200 staff, over an undefined timeframe. The company recently obtained the official approvals for deployment of its TD-SCDMA equipment from Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

NSN was the major solution supplier for China Mobile Shen Zhen TD-SCDMA network’s planning, construction and optimization.

Adds Steven Shaw, head of Services in Greater China region of NSN, “We have gained invaluable experience in working with China Mobile in the Shen Zhen TD-SCDMA network. With our strong base in 2G and rich global experience in 3G deployment, comprehensive TD-SCDMA portfolio, strong local service support and clear evolution path to LTE, we are confident in helping operator customers to fulfill their goals.”

NSN shareholder, Nokia is a 49% holder in a Chinese joint venture, Potevio with China Putian to develop network infrastructure based on the Chinese 3G standard. Potevio was set up in 2005 and has also been the major supplier of equipment to China Mobile's TD-SCDMA trial networks in Tianjin and Qinhuangdao.

Last month, Nokia's vice-president of Greater China sales, David Tang said that the firm would launch a range of handsets based on the Chinese 3G standard.

China has begun tightening its work visa application process for foreigners to keep out people with a criminal record, but critics say the implementation of the provision is "ill-conceived" and will impede even Fortune 500 companies' ability to hire expatriate talent.

Under the amended rules, foreigners applying for - or renewing - work visas (Z visas) must additionally submit a certificate from a police station in their home country - and authenticated by the Chinese embassy in that country - declaring that the applicant does not have a criminal record.

Initially, the additional paperwork requirement will apply only for foreign workers in Guangdong, the booming province in southern China that's better known as the "world's factory floor". But given that Guangdong has always been a "laboratory" for China's economic and administrative reforms, the provision is certain to be implemented nationwide, reckon immigration lawyers and business consultants.

The new regulation may have been inspired by some recent instances of Chinese businesses being defrauded by foreign-national employees who (it was later revealed) had previous criminal records in their home countries, say lawyers.

In itself, the 'no criminal record' certification isn't an unreasonable requirement. "The motive (for the introduction of the new provision) is to put in place reasonable criteria for people to obtain a work permit," says Chris Devonshire-Ellis, senior partner at Dezan Shira & Associates, a professional services firm providing FDI, legal, tax, accounting and due diligence services for multinational corporations.

But there are "serious shortcomings" in the manner in which it has been implemented, he adds. "It will have a negative impact on the ability of foreign-invested enterprises in China to be properly managed, and a negative impact in the way foreign business people view China as being a reasonable place to work."

As a result of this provision, "it's going to be very frustrating for well-meaning businessmen and employers to get the right quality of senior executives and expatriate personnel into position in China," says Devonshire-Ellis.

Indians face 'discrimination'. In particular, notes Devonshire-Ellis, "certain nationalities, among them Indians, face discrimination in obtaining China visas purely on the basis of their passport."

Although this appears to be a haphazard situation, implemented differently across the country, China's administrative infrastructure appears unable to determine whether an individual is "undesirable" or a senior executive in a multinational. "This is becoming an area of concern and is damaging China's foreign direct investment environment," he adds.

There appears to have been "little or no dialogue" between Chinese immigration authorities and the international community about the implications of putting in place the 'no criminal record' regulation, says Devonshire-Ellis.

In some countries, like New Zealand, there is no such certification process in the first place. In others, such as the US, "there is no formal or well-defined procedure to obtain such a document."

In effect, China has invoked its domestic administrative system, which is based on the restrictive hukou (household registry) system, and imposed it on foreign nationals who apply for a work visa. Under the hukou system, a Chinese national's personal records are stored in their hometown, which is their place of birth. All requests to relocate in China or to engage in business are serviced by the local police station in the hometown, notes Devonshire-Ellis. "But such a procedure simply cannot be assumed to be in place in other countries, and in fact it largely isn't," he observes.

Complying with the new regulation is also fraught with logistical nightmares for those who are already working in China and need to renew their visas. "The request for a certificate from a police station in the applicant's country of origin ignores the fact many expats have worked overseas for years and may not have any contacts with their local police station in their home country," points out Devonshire-Ellis. "Second, it requires an expensive trip back home to secure such documentation."

In any case, in many countries, the administrative procedure to supply such a document does not exist. Even if it does, it's unlikely to be issued by "the local police station" in countries such as the United Kingdom, most European nations, and the US and Canada, where the registry of criminal offenders is maintained at a national, not local, level.

The latest work visa measure comes barely five months after China tightened the provision for securing business (F) visas and tourism (L) visas. In the run-up to the Olympics, and following the riots in Tibet in March, China introduced stringent provisions that still remain in place. Immigration lawyers in Shenzhen expect the F visa and L visa provisions to be relaxed a bit after the Paralympics in Beijing, but with greater monitoring to prevent their abuse.

Foreign companies operating in China have been given a 30 September deadline to allow unions to be fomed in their offices and factories failing which, the companies could be publicly vilified or blacklisted by the union and also attract penalties from the government.

China is asking all foreign companies to permit state approved labour unions at a time when raw material costs have risen dramatically and labour costs escalated by 30 to 40 per cent, forcing foreign corporations to think twice about setting up shop in China.

Many large corporations had set up manufacturing units in China mainly because of cheap labour and also to avoid labour problems that disrupt operations in their own countries. The ongoing Boeing machinists and the strike threat at Arcelor Mittal steel plants in the US are striking examples.

This move to permit unionisation stems from China's recent economic boom and the government is keen to rectify some of the maladies like vast income disparities and labour exploitation that has been highlighted by leading western labour activists.

Many large American corporations such as Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Yum Brands, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut who own and run their establishments in China, have yielded to employees setting up unions, while those like Microsft and PricewaterhouseCoopers are resisting on the grounds that they do not operate manufacturing units.

In 2006 nearly Wal-Mart employees at 108 stores have opted to have a trade union although Wal-Mart's dislike for trade unions is well known in the US and other countries where it operates.

Companies that have set up manufacturing units in China will be the hardest hit due to soaring raw material and labour costs. Despite adhering to Chinese labour laws, they fear allowing unions would force them to have to pay substantial overtime wages, as many factories maintain a six-day work week.

Labour activists worldwide have targeted Chinese manufacturing enterprises, which employ child labour, with reports in the western media of children being forced to put in working hours of nearly 100 hours a week without any overtime and often in violation of safety regulations.

Some of the contractors for big renowned brands such as Wal-Mart, Adidas and Disney were fired for hiring and exploiting child labour.

Analysts say that allowing unions in Chinese companies would give absolute power to the the only union allowed by the government, the All China Federation of Trade Unions, in terms of bargaining and force foreign companies to consult with the unions on every issue, a thing foreign companies never had to do in the past.

The question of agitating for their legal rights and the ability to bargain collectively is still a question mark as unions are a relatively new concept in China.

According to the All China Federation of Trade Unions, by the end of September about 80 per cent of the top 500 global corporations operating in China would have unions.

The domestic job market will face growing pressures over the next few months as global economic problems cut employment in a number of sectors, a top labor official said yesterday.

"Employment remains a major difficulty in terms of overall social development, and it faces huge pressures," Hu Xiaoyi, Vice-Minister of Human Resources and Social Security Hu Xiaoyi told a news conference at the Beijing International Media Center.

About 20 million people join the workforce every year in China, which continues to have a labor surplus, he said.

Growing global economic uncertainties in the first half of this year and the pressure brought by a rising yuan on foreign trade have led to job cuts in a number of sectors, Hu said.

Adding to the seriousness of the situation is the large number of laid-off workers from State-owned enterprises (SOEs) as 2008 marks the last year for the central government to shut down bankrupt SOEs, Wang Yadong, a deputy division chief at the ministry said earlier.

Zhou Tianyong, professor of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, said that the possible economic slowdown during the next six months will put pressures on China's employment market.

"China's employment has been generally driven by investment. With the scale of investment shrinking, it is time to rethink this employment growth model," Zhou told Xiaokang magazine in July.

To tackle these problems, Hu said the government will continue to focus on creating employment for families in which no member has a job, people below the poverty line and the more than 5 million people graduating from universities every year.

The government is also encouraging people to set up their own businesses, Hu said.

China's registered urban and township unemployment rate stood at 4 percent in the first half, generally the same as in the same period last year, he said.

A total of 8.35 million people were registered unemployed across the country's urban areas and townships in the first half of the year, the ministry said.

However, the figure did not take into account the huge number of people made jobless by the May 12 earthquake, Hu said.

Some self-employed people in the quake zone are still running businesses, and those made temporarily jobless will soon resume their employment as soon as reconstruction begins, he said.

According to estimates, more than 700,000 people in Sichuan are believed to have lost their jobs as a result of the quake.

Vice-Minister of Civil Affairs Jiang Li told the same conference of Friday that people who lost their arms or legs in the quake will get life long care and treatment from the government and charitable bodies.

CHINA'S monetary policy will not shift substantially in response to the global downturn. But employers in China should increase wages by 10 per cent in order to attract workers as the labour surplus disappears.

These are among the rare insights opened, through China's leading business publication, Caijing magazine, into the economic advice the country's leaders are being given as they face multiple challenges.

Cai Fang, director of the Institute of Population and Labour Economics at the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has spoken to the magazine about his message to Premier Wen Jiabao and the State Council, China's cabinet, during a closed-door meeting with eight leading economists.

He said: "We talked about whether economic growth will slow, how to contain inflation and stimulate growth, and whether China should maintain its tight monetary policy."

China's economists, he said, "are split on the two major macro tasks: fighting inflation and stimulating growth. However, we generally agreed that monetary policy should remain as it is. We should neither loosen it nor tighten it further."

Cai said officials at the State Council were especially concerned about the extent to which the slowdown of gross domestic product growth -- from 11.9 per cent in 2007 to 10.4 per cent in the first half of 2008 -- will hurt employment. "Should we retain the growth momentum to ensure high employment rates?" This, he said, was his main focus. "The growth rate is flattening out, while unemployment is climbing."

In the last quarter, ending June 30, registered urban unemployment reached 4.1 per cent. Clearly it was rising, he said. Before this year, it was declining.

"A few years ago, China's registered unemployment rate didn't reflect the real situation because it excluded laid-off workers. But the number of laid-off workers has largely been reduced in recent years due to the Government's re-employment efforts. Now the registered rate is close to what it is in reality."

But in China, he said, "economic growth and employment are not closely related. One reason is that Chinese policy favours large size companies. The preference became even more obvious when the Government adjusted its macro-economic policies recently."

Companies receiving government backing, he said, "are usually enterprises with high profits, low emissions, low rates of pollution and less reliance on resources. In reality, they are big companies, especially state-controlled ones, equipped with better technologies."

His institute surveyed 17 industries and found that capital-intensive companies, most of which are large firms, contribute substantially to GDP growth but are not so impressive in terms of creating new jobs.

Last year, the control of credit was tightened in both quantity and quality. Better risk controls and higher earnings were required for lending, and that situation diverted loans toward larger companies and away from small ones because, he said, "lending to them became even riskier".

Most unemployment, he said, is structural rather than cyclical. Coupled with the low employment rate of college graduates, the rate even shows signs of rising.

Cai said private companies, most of them small and medium-sized, had played an important part in absorbing labour displaced by massive lay-offs from state-owned factories.

But "the current economic slowdown, however, has hit them hard. And statistics tend to miss unemployment in these sectors", with migrant workers not being registered at all.

Tight monetary policy was not good news for such businesses, he said. "Historically, it's hard for these companies to borrow from banks, and they turn to the market for financing." With the central bank issuing the commercial banks with firm instructions to tighten lending, the SMEs tend to borrow privately from "grey" sources, which "leads to skyrocketing interest rates".

Tax revenues rose rapidly in the first half of 2008, he said, so, in compensation for the adjustments required from vulnerable businesses, "it's widely agreed among scholars that we can cut tax rates a bit.

"There are needs for more government spending -- natural disasters hit China one after another, and we just hosted the Olympics. And it might want to set aside some money for a rainy day."

However, "nobody is speaking on behalf of SOEs and advocating low taxes".

China has no nationwide social security system, he says. Some provinces don't even have a province-wide social security net. "That leads to many migrant workers withdrawing from the social security system. Why? For instance, in the pension system, workers pay 8 per cent of their salary and companies match it."

In seasonal, labour-intensive industries, workers finish their terms and leave the job for good. But their social security benefits can't go with them. So they have to withdraw from the system, taking back their own contributions, while the company's contribution stays within the system.

"So there is no upside for workers to join the pension system, and for companies it creates a financial burden," he said.

"Officials from inland provinces complain that coastal provinces have seen a fast increase of social security funds because they not only siphoned labourers from inland but social security funds as well."

Cai said that migrant workers' insurance provisions should be portable and nationwide. When workers retired, they should be able to receive both their own contributions and those from their employers. "China's development has reached a stage where labour shortages are occurring, and the labor supply-demand equation is changing. That requires a rise in salary and other benefits."

He backed the new Labour Law that came into effect on January 1, and which has come under attack from some employers, saying wages should rise by some 10 per cent.

"I think we should stick with the new law," he said. "There are problems with enforcing it, which were not created by the law itself but by a lack of support measures.

"Companies feel overburdened, partly because of the inadequate social security system. This is not the fault of the Labour Law. If a company can't bear a modest rise, it is not competitive except as a sweatshop. We should let such companies die, if they have to."

In developing countries, he said, sometimes when laws are made to protect workers the result is higher unemployment. "The unlimited supply of labour in developing countries is to blame.

"India is one good example. Research shows that economic development levels in different parts of India are directly related to their labour policies, and those which have tight labour regulations often lag in economic development."

The reason that Cai backs the Labour Law is that labour in China is moving from a surplus to a relative balance. "There must be some kind of incentive to spur labour supply and attract workers," he said.

BEIJING, Sept 9 (Reuters) - China's employment outlook is dimming for the rest of 2008, but post-quake reconstruction will increase jobs in the west of the country, Manpower Inc (MAN.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said in a survey released on Tuesday.

A poll of 4,014 employers in nine major cities showed China's net employment outlook -- the difference between firms adding jobs and those cutting them -- was a positive 12 percent for the fourth quarter, the employment services provider said.

But the reading, which is seasonally adjusted, was down 3 percentage points from the third quarter and 1 percentage point from a year earlier.

Lucille Wu, managing director of Manpower Greater China, said job seekers in the services sector were most likely to feel the pinch as companies cut temporary workers after the Olympic Games, although the overall impact would be limited.

The survey's reading for the services sector was unchanged from the third quarter but was down 2 percentage points from a year earlier.

Wu said a slew of government measures, including more bank loans and tax breaks, to help the local economy recover from May's devastating earthquake in Sichuan would encourage hiring in western cities such as Chengdu and Xi'an.

Optimism among employers in Chengdu was at a record high, the survey showed.

Elsewhere, hiring prospects weakened across the Asia-Pacific, according to Manpower, while the U.S. jobs outlook fell to its lowest level since 2003 as growth slowed due to the still unfolding financial crisis. Please click on [ID:nN08468275] for a related story. (Reporting by Langi Chiang; Editing by Alan Wheatley and Ken Wills)

The HR outsourcing market in China is expected to be worth more than £41bn at the end of this year, according to a new study.

Outsourcing provider EquaTerra said the Chinese market was experiencing rapid growth and would expand by at least 25% by the end of 2009. Five years ago, the market was valued at only £8bn.

EquaTerra spoke to 15 leading China-based HR directors of foreign businesses. They cited several reasons for not outsourcing HR to China, including concerns about data security and loss of management control.

But they acknowledged that a significant proportion of HR administration functions would be outsourced in the next three to five years, with payroll and recruitment leading the way.

However, the report warned that China still does not have enough skilled manpower to meet the growing demands of the HR outsourcing market.

EquaTerra said this would lead to wage acceleration for providers, margin erosion and talent shortages.

"Ultimately, the dominant players will be those companies that can obtain and retain quality delivery people," the report said.

To read the full report, download the Human Resources Outsourcing in China pdf

Mike Berry (About this Author)

51job Inc.'s (JOBS) financial results for the second quarter showed a lower net profit margin due to higher sales and marketing expenses and a higher tax rate. Both its revenue and EPS missed the market consensus.

Although 51job continues to have the highest brand recognition in the online and offline recruiting markets in China, the leading position hasn't gained any competitive advantage for 51job to improve its profit margin. Therefore, we are downgrading the stock from Buy to Hold.

China has 253 million internet users as of the end of June 2008. It has approximately 750 million workers now and more and more companies of different size begin to use low-cost online recruiting. This is a very positive tail wind environment in which to operate. Additionally, it is estimated that revenue of online recruiting services in China will reach RMB 2.63 billion in 2011. According to estimates, revenue of online recruiting services will amount for 45.3% of the total recruiting market in 2010.

Through a targeted sales and marketing strategy, 51job has been focusing on further building the '51job' brand as the 'one-stop' human resource services provider. Now 51job is the most famous brand in the recruiting market in China and this position has helped the company enter more profitable second-tier cities in China.

Using a P/E multiple of 18.2x our fiscal year 2009 earnings per ADS estimate of $0.70 yields a target price of $12.75, which can reflect company's great growth prospects, in our view.

BEIJING, (Xinhua) -- The Organization Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee has launched a project to make 100,000 college graduates over fives years to work in villages.

The Organization Department will work closely with the ministries of education and finance and the new ministry of human resources and social security to select competent graduates.

Graduates who pass written, oral and physical tests will be dispatched to work as assistants to heads of CPC branches and directors of village committees.

They will be responsible for helping farmers with agricultural technology, raising health awareness and skills, promoting cultural activities and also researching farmers' complaints.

The graduate's specialties will be an important reference for the consideration of selection.

The CPC will offer a three-year contract with adequate insurance to selected graduates with bachelor and master degrees. The monthly salaries will vary with the length of service.

Li Yuanchao, head of the Organization Department, urged Party officials at local levels to provide an appropriate environment for the work and lives of graduate workers.

Li said the project was a strategic move for the CPC to train reserve cadres who were acquainted with rural areas.

All qualifying tests to be held during the selection should be transparent to ensure fairness.

Graduates who complete the three-year service will have priority for consideration in civil service post in governments at all levels. Service in rural areas will be added to their accumulated length of service.

The Ministry of Education said the number of college students graduating this year will reach a record 5.59 million, 640,000 more than last year.

Despite the size of China’s workforce, and the growing ranks of educated, young graduates available for hire, one of the main challenges for human resources managers continues to be identifying and recruiting talented employees. Because of the difficulty in identifying and hiring talent in China, it becomes that much more important not to lose these valuable employees once they are onboard. Human resources managers are increasingly looking beyond the traditional benefits and salary packages as a means of retaining staff.

While “Duty of Care” is often viewed as simply the responsibility an employer has to its employees, this concept is increasingly being seen as an important component in retaining employees. Duty of care has evolved from its traditional form, largely involving guarding against conventional workplace safety hazards and the provision of standard medical benefits to ensuring employees have access to care in the event of illness and providing proactive support to employee’s families in the form of wellness information and training. In the global workplace, however, the types of hazards and risks HR directors face when it comes to protecting their human assets have evolved to include a myriad of new areas.

Global Risks and Responsibility

The definition of the workplace has expanded. Employees are becoming increasingly mobile as business operations become more global, making direct physical oversight of all employees at all times less feasible. Some companies respond by helping employees in the event of a problem, which offers no ongoing support to employees over the course of their travels. However, travel into areas known for threats ranging from terrorism to natural disasters and pandemics warrants more active support and monitoring of employees. As employees are asked to travel to increasingly distant and foreign locations for business, human resources managers are first responsible for being aware of the potential risks of travel to various locations throughout the world. While business must continue even in areas known for higher travel and security risks, companies must be able to contact or account for employees as quickly as possible in the event of an incident in an area in which employees are traveling. The use of services to provide 24-hour travel support may help employees feel more secure and confident, with direct access to emergency assistance anytime, anywhere. This equally applies to Chinese employees traveling outside of Beijing and Shanghai – they may not be familiar with their surroundings and their presence as a “non-local” could make them a target for petty criminals or worse.

For companies with global operations, employees are often required to conduct business in countries with unfamiliar cultures or dangerous environments, with both often going together. While proper systems and monitoring are one part of strong travel support for employees, training is also an important component in preparation for travel or postings in foreign environments. For some locations, training may simply involve putting employees in a better position to fit in and succeed in a foreign business culture. In other environments, training is crucial in protecting and preparing employees to be able to handle dangerous situations. For example, with the increasing amount of Chinese investment in Africa and the Middle East, it is quite feasible that a senior project manager based in Beijing may be asked to travel to high risk areas such as Afghanistan or Nigeria for an extended period to oversee a crucial project. Providing that manager with pre-travel High Threat Environment training and emergency support while they are on the ground will enable them to better focus on the job at hand and also be prepared to handle incidents that may occur. They will be better aware of the threat environment and less likely to put themselves in danger. This kind of support from the company will also provide some peace of mind to the employee’s family back home in China. Training is also important in raising awareness and helping traveling employees to become familiar with the services and support the company offers. Having a top of the line foreign medical/security assistance program or emergency evacuation service is of no use if traveling employees are not familiar with the services or how to access them if necessary.

Duty to Identify Internal Risks

Duty of care also begins to enter the area of legal requirements employers must fulfill when it comes to protecting their employees. On a very basic level, employers have a responsibility to protect their staff from foreseeable risks. A major component in prevention is thorough due diligence of new employees, vendors, suppliers or any internal entity engaging the company’s people, assets or information. Background checks have generally been seen as an exercise to ensure the capabilities and qualifications of a potential employee or vendor. However, in addition to being a means of measuring capabilities, background checks may also surface historical risks that could threaten the company in the form of fraud, loss of assets or even violence. Having in place an effective due diligence program can also have a deterrent effect upon potential offenders from even approaching the company.

Even if there are no legal requirements, companies may consider voluntarily adopting a higher standard of duty of care as a part of good corporate social responsibility on behalf of all stakeholders involved, also making the company a more attractive employer.

Duty of Care and Retention

Extending beyond a form of infrastructure to protect employees from various risks, duty of care has evolved into a more organic concept as companies strive to show employees that they are valued on a very personal level through active engagement. A company that shows it values its employees as people, making employees feel as though they matter to the company on an individual level, is a company that will be seen as a good employer. A competitor can always offer to pay marginally higher salaries in an attempt to attract away employees. However, employees will not be ready to leave a good company, where they know they are well cared for, merely for a few dollars.

Neal Beatty is General Manager of Control Risks in Beijing. Control Risks is an independent risk consultancy with 18 offices on five continents. It provides advice and services that enable companies, governments and international organisations to accelerate opportunities and manage strategic and operational risks.

Excerpts from Gilford Securities analyst Ashish R. Thadhani's recent note to clients on 51job, Inc. (JOBS):

• • •

Solid 4Q: 33% YoY Growth, 15% Op. Margin, Cash ~$5 / ADS; Aggressive S&M (Sales & Marketing) Posture Delays Upside, EPS Estimates Cut

Investment Conclusion. Based on stepped-up operating expenses (marketing, sales force expansion and online product development) – offset partially by continued currency-aided revenue growth – we are reducing our estimates: 2008 GAAP EPADS to $0.55 on net revenue of $131 million (23% YoY growth) from $0.68 on net revenue of $128 million; and 2009 GAAP EPADS to $0.75 on net revenue of $163 million (25% YoY growth) from $0.90 on net revenue of $159 million.

We are lowering our target from $23 to $20.50. In 12-months, this would correspond to a $434 million enterprise value and 25-30x forward GAAP EPADS – a premium to 20% compound EPS growth in 2007-09E. Although 51job stated that "business fundamentals are stronger than ever," we are disappointed by ballooning near-term S&M expenses (27% of 2008E net revenue vs. 22% in 2007) – ostensibly to match rival ChinaHR.com. On a positive note, the $360-405 million valuation placed on ChinaHR.com by Monster (MNST-Hold) has positive implications for 51job ($386 million), which remains much larger and more profitable than its nearest competitor.

4Q07 Results. GAAP EPADS of $0.10 vs. $0.09 a year ago on net revenue of $27.7 million (33% YoY growth) beat our $0.09 estimate on net revenue of $26.0 million. 51job posted positive variances in net revenue ($1.7 million led by training/outsourcing – this segment could benefit under the new labor law) and tax/other items ($0.2 million) – offset partially by operating costs ($1.1 million) and a forex translation loss ($0.5 million).

Revenue from online recruitment services advanced 40% YoY to 36% of the total. Operating income rose 57% YoY to $4.1 million (14.9% margin) and exceeded our $3.5 million estimate (13.3% margin) by 17%. Metrics showed somewhat slower growth in print advertising page-count (+21% YoY) with lower average revenue per page (-3% YoY in dollar terms attributed to city-mix); and steady growth in the number of employers using online services (+30% YoY) with higher revenue per employer (+8% YoY). Net cash climbed to $138.0 million (or $4.85 per ADS) from $131.7 million on September 30...

Investment Thesis. According to recent surveys, a shortage of qualified staff and high turnover ranks as the biggest business concern in China. 51job is enviably placed to capitalize on the rapidly evolving market for HR services in China – by applying a proven business model across its vast labor force (5x U.S.). Compared with traditional job search channels such as referrals and fairs, pioneers like 51job offer significant reach and speed advantages.

Favorable demographic drivers include GDP growth (~10% in recent years), Internet usage (ranked #2 behind the U.S.), an aging workforce and increasing private, urban and service sector employment. iResearch forecasts that the total recruitment market in China will increase from $568 million to $1.39 billion in 2005-10, implying 20% compound annual growth. During this period, the online recruitment segment is expected to advance from $99 million (17% of the total) to $631 million (45%), or 45% compound annual growth.

Superior positioning includes a premium brand/pricing; comprehensive online/offline offering; wide geographic presence (25+ cities); large direct sales force (over 1,600 representatives); and unmatched job seeker database (access to more than 16 million resumes for professional, clerical, industrial and hourly jobs). EPS growth stands to benefit from ramp-up of online subscriptions (from single-digit penetration of client budgets at present) and a scalable model offering 30%-plus operating margin (excluding share-based compensation).

JOBS is suitable for aggressive investors. In our opinion, principal risks include the following:

Deterioration of economic conditions in China, slowing of hiring activity or a “hard landing” scenario.

Competition from ChinaHR.com and Internet portals could pressure future profitability by way of higher marketing expenses and/or lower pricing.

Rapid online migration could result in cannibalization of offline revenue.

51job has an inconsistent execution record.
Uncertainties in the PRC regulatory and legal system, particularly laws governing foreign ownership and licensing/operation of HR and Internet business entities. Note that 51job is incorporated as a holding company in the Cayman Islands.

Disruptions such as spread of the H5N1 virus or a recurrence of SARS, political unrest, breakdown in relationship with a major publishing/distribution contractor, etc.
Influence of Recruit Co. and current management over all matters requiring a shareholder vote.
Correction in the U.S. markets.

Sydney, (ANTARA News/Xinhua-PRNewswire-AsiaNet) - Heidrick & Struggles increased its net revenue by 58.8 per cent in the Asia Pacific region last year, driven by continuing high demand for leadership advisory and executive search services.

Net revenue for APAC was $US78.6 million. Operating income of $US15.9 million increased 20.1 per cent compared with 2006 and the operating margin was 20.3 per cent, compared with 26.8 per cent in 2006 as the firm invested in infrastructure to support its expansion.

Regional managing partner Gerry Davis says that Australia New Zealand, Greater China and Singapore recorded the highest growth rates, with ANZ revenue up 118 per cent on last year, Greater China up 33 per cent, Singapore 72 per cent, India, 29 per cent, Japan 33 per cent and Korea 61 per cent.

Davis says that an aggressive recruiting effort and investment in information technology infrastructure have provided a strong foundation for further regional expansion in 2008.

"Offices have also been expanded and upgraded to cater for the increased headcount. We have opened an office in Bangkok, Thailand to address the significant demand for multi-national and in-country executives," Davis says.

The scale of reach of the Heidrick & Struggles operation in Asia Pacific has caused many corporations to seek access to its "thought leadership", industry sector analysis and research materials, Davis says.

Leadership advisory practice leader Steve Langton says the firms advisory work has helped to increase the number of chief executive and non-executive director roles. "Leadership advice leverages the Heidrick & struggles reputation, brand and capability to support clients in addressing their talent concerns they have in a time of leadership transition." Langton says.

Globally, for the fiscal year ended December 31, Heidrick & Struggles reported consolidated net revenue of $US619.7 million, an increase of 29.5 per cent from $US478.5 million in 2006. The firm expects global revenue to grow by between 5 and 8 per cent in 2008.

About Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc.

Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc. is the worlds premier provider of senior-level executive search and leadership consulting services, including talent management, board building, executive on-boarding and M&A effectiveness.

For more than 50 years, we have focused on quality service and built strong leadership teams through our relationships with clients and individuals worldwide. Today, Heidrick & Struggles leadership experts operate from principal business centers in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific.

Robert Walters, the recruitment consultants, will tomorrow announce an expansion into mainland China through an acquisition designed to increase its exposure to one of the world's fastest-growing job markets.

The company, which already has operations in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Japan, has bought Talent Spotter, a specialist recruitment business headquartered in Shanghai, for around £1.4m.

Although the deal is relatively small - Talent Spotter has 49 staff and one other office in the prosperous nearby city of Suzhou - it reflects the growing importance that professional services companies are placing on China.

Despite the country's rapid economic growth over the past few decades, the recruitment sector is still in relative infancy. Nevertheless, the demand for such services is expected to rise as the country becomes more integrated into the global economy and Chinese businesses and organisations face calls for increasing professionalism.

Several recruitment companies have set up offices in China or established joint ventures, but Robert Walters' move is believed to be the first foreign takeover of a domestic firm and is the first it has made in more than 10 years.

The acquisition is expected to be a platform for growing the business throughout the country. The acquisition comes as Robert Walters' full-year results are expected to show a 17 per cent increase in net fee income to around £127m and a 30 per cent increase in pre-tax profits to £24.5m, despite the economic turmoil.

As millions of migrant workers are about to return to factories across costal provinces in Southeast China after the lunar new year, a report from China’s most high profile domestic investment bank, the China International Capital Corporation Ltd. (CICC) concludes that many small and medium-sized labor-intensive enterprises believe the new Labor Contract Law will increase labor costs and affect their recruitment plans.

CICC’s investigation in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces reveals that in most areas there is little room left for further rural labor transfer. Due to a relatively insufficient labor supply, wages for migrant workers in recent years have been growing at an annual average rate of 10-15%. Meanwhile, the productivity of private enterprises has been increasing at the same speed, if not faster.

The Yangtze Delta, in which Jiangsu and Zhejiang are located, is one of China’s most important export-oriented economic zones. Most of the private enterprises in these two provinces are in labor-intensive industries, areas that have a great need of migrant and technical workers. The report indicates that the diminishing supply of workers has added to the difficulty in recruiting new workers. To retain workers, private enterprises have had to increase wages, resulting in wages maintaining an annual growth rate of 10-15%. However, most of the companies looked at as part of the investigation claimed they could afford such growth because the productivity of the businesses had also increased. They also predict that wages in 2008 will continue to grow by at least 10%. However, the New Labor Contract Law will have little impact on large enterprises and high-tech enterprises.

The kind of small and medium-sized labor-intensive enterprises surveyed in Jiangsu and Zhejiang province did not pay social security premiums for all their employees. The new law, which forces them to pay the premium, will raise labor costs in these companies. Regulations about overtime wages in the new law will also add to these costs. Most companies investigated believe the new Labor Contract Law will significantly increase potential risks for labor-capital disputes and could therefore influence the company’s recruitment plans.

Many companies are unsatisfied with the new law. They claim that unequal rights and duties in the new law could be easily abused by employees and will add to the implicit costs of companies. The new law aims to provide migrant workers with endowment insurance, but this isn’t suitable for China’s current situation and can’t be enacted anyway because of the high mobility of the rural labor force and the current social security system which has yet be unified nationwide. Meanwhile, most migrant workers are unwilling to pay the social security premium, as they would prefer to receive more cash in their pay packet. So neither companies nor workers welcome the new law. Some entrepreneurs even believe the government is attempting to shift its social responsibility onto private businesses.

Another concern about the new law lies in the inflation problem that is likely to worsen due to raised labor costs. The investigation shows that incremental labor costs may not be completely shifted to the product price. Because of the low technical content and low threshold, there is fierce competition in labor-intensive industries. Despite the constant increase in raw materials and labor costs, most small and medium-sized private enterprises have not shifted incremental costs onto consumers. Instead, they have offset these costs by improving productivity. In fact, the majority of these companies are operating within meager profit margins.

A clothing company based in Wenzhou, a city in Zhejiang province famous for highly developed private sector economy, estimates the new Labor Contract Law may add an extra 15% in labor costs to companies. But because of the acute competition they are unable to offset these costs by lifting prices, but may rather have to reduce prices in order to promote sales.

The report concluded that while the new law may not cause apparent inflation pressures in the short-term, it would possibly affect companies’ income and employment prospects. Large enterprises and state-owned enterprises will basically remain unaffected as they have long been paying social security for all their employees; High-tech companies, benefiting from a high added-value, small number of employees and regular social security payments, are also unlikely to be influenced. But for those small and medium-sized enterprises with low added value, the new law will undoubtedly raise labor costs. And fierce competition among them makes it difficult to shift cost pressures by lifting product prices. Seen from a mid and long-term perspective, the negative influence on the income of small and medium-sized enterprises may promote purchases and mergers among such industries. This will lead to an increased degree of concentration within the sector and ultimately see labor cost increases reflected in higher product prices. Therefore, pressures on commodity prices brought about by the new Labor Contract Law can’t be ignored

HONG KONG -- Executive hiring by multinationals in Japan is set to reach a six-year high this quarter but a global credit squeeze will affect staffing plans at IT and finance firms in Hong Kong, according to a survey by recruitment firm Hudson.

The report was slightly less upbeat than a previous survey three months ago because hiring expectations in China and Singapore have dipped. Hudson said rising concern that the United States is heading for a recession would make banks and finance firms in the region more cautious about hiring.

Still, 66 percent of managers at multinationals in Japan expect to increase recruitment this quarter, according to the survey released on Thursday, up from 65 percent three months ago and the highest level since the Hudson report was launched in late 2001.

In China, 61 percent of managers at multinationals plan to increase headcount in the next three months, down just slightly from 64 percent in the previous quarter.

The survey by Chicago-based Hudson Highland Group Inc. covered responses from 2,500 managers at multinational companies across industry sectors in China, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore.

"The market in Asia is still looking buoyant and it is quite separate from issues in the United States," said Gina McLellan, Hong Kong manager for the US firm.

"But from February to April we'll start to see the actual size of bonuses and whether recently announced global headcount cuts by some investment banks will come in Asia."

Asia's financial services sector is booming, helped by China's and India's rapid economic development, and international finance companies are expanding in the region.

JP Morgan says it could hire up to 1,900 people in Hong Kong in the next three years and Credit Suisse plans to hire at least 70 bankers in the Asia-Pacific this year.

However, there could be job losses too in financial centres Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo as investment banks including Citigroup, Lehman Brothers and UBS have announced plans to lay off thousands of staff worldwide in the wake of the credit squeeze, even though those cuts are likely to focus on the United States and Europe.

In Hong Kong, 58 percent of managers surveyed plan to add staff this quarter, up from 54 percent three months ago, but nearly a third of IT&T companies and 23 percent in finance and banking say the global credit squeeze triggered by problems in the US subprime mortgage sector would have an impact on hiring.

In Japan, 12 percent of managers across sectors say hiring plans will be affected by the credit squeeze compared with less than 10 percent in Singapore and China.

"Hiring expectations remain at a high level in all the markets surveyed and the outlook is positive," McLellan said. "But employers are caught between sharply rising salaries and bonuses on one hand and high staff turnover rates on the other. This is most marked in China."

The survey showed a third of managers in China expect to increase managers' starting salaries by more than 20 percent to attract candidates and 47 percent reported turnover rates above 10 percent.

In Singapore and Hong Kong, 19 to 20 percent of managers said they had to offer pay increases of more than 20 percent but in Japan only 4.0 percent of managers saw such a need.

Chinese mainland employers across all industries, and the service sector in particular, remain optimistic in their recruitment plans in the first quarter of 2008, according to a recent survey.

The employment outlook survey, conducted by Manpower, a world leader in the employment services industry, questioned nearly 52,000 employers around the world, including more than 16,000 in the Asia-Pacific region and 4,100 in the Chinese mainland.

The Chinese mainland net employment outlook improved by two-percentage points since last quarter, but dropped slightly compared to the same quarter of 2007, according to the survey.

In the first quarter of 2008, the net employment outlook for the Chinese mainland stands at 14 percent. That figure is the percentage of employers anticipating an increase in hiring activity, minus that of employers expecting to reduce their workforce, said the Manpower.

The survey also found the strongest recruitment plans in the service sector, for the second consecutive quarter, as services gear up for the 2008 Olympic Games.

"The Chinese mainland, faced with companies' over-cautious recruitment activities, is drafting related detailed laws and regulations to clarify its labor contract law," said Lucille Wu, managing director of Manpower Greater China. She added, "Once this is complete, we believe employment relationships in the Chinese mainland will achieve standardization."

Among major cities of the Chinese mainland, employers in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province and where the outlook index has reached 19 percent, report the strongest recruitment expectations. That figure is a 10-percentage point improvement over the previous quarter and the strongest quarter-over-quarter increase to date.

"The result of the survey reflects a growing demand for talent in Chengdu, one of the most important cities in southwestern China," said Wu.

Last September, the Sichuan provincial government signed a strategic cooperation agreement on talent development with Manpower, in an effort to take advantage of Manpower's network to improve the local talent pool while attracting foreign investment.

In the other 26 countries and regions covered by the survey, first-quarter hiring is also expected to be positive although degrees of optimism vary, according to the survey.

In the Asia-Pacific region, employers in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan Province indicate they will slow the pace of hiring compared to the same period of last year. The strongest recruitment plans were reported in Singapore and India.

Dissatisfied staff, increasing job mobility, rising wage demands – no, it's not Europe or the U.S. but Asia, where the booming economies of the region are fuelling an increasingly fierce war for talent.

Asian workers are becoming happier to dump their old employers and chase the best jobs and money, in the process creating a talent and retention crisis for both local and Western employers in the region.

A study by recruitment firm StepStone has found companies looking to tap into Asia's rapidly expanding economies are reporting growing difficulties when it comes to recruiting and retaining skilled employees.

What's more, the wage bill – once one of the biggest attractions for Western companies moving operations to the region – has been rising sharply.

The company's Talent Report 2008 has concluded that the notion as a "low-cost utopia with an abundance of labour" is now long gone.

Senior managers in Asia reported facing four major recruitment and retention obstacles.

These were: rising wage and pay demands among potential candidates, a lack of suitable candidates and skills, a perceived lack of career opportunities among workers and employee increasingly believing they could snap up better pay and benefits elsewhere.

The expectations of workers in the region were also rising, with workers no longer prepared to settle for second best and feeling they deserved more than they were getting.

Employees were now much more likely to jump ship if a better offer came along.

Job hopping was set to become one of the biggest talent headaches for organisations over the next three years, StepStone predicted.

Despite these difficulties, more than four out of 10 business leaders surveyed globally believed the Asia-Pacific region offered their business the best opportunities for revenue growth over the next three years.

The region has been much less affected than Europe or the U.S. by the sub-prime led credit crunch and in areas such as financial services is looking particularly strong at the moment.

Nearly nine out of 10 global business leaders expected either slight or significant improvement in their company's growth prospects over the next three years, with fewer than three out of 10 saying the rising cost of credit had caused them to be less optimistic.

"While recent surveys and financial analyst predictions indicate a drop in business confidence in the next year, it's clear that most business executives are still bullish on Asia as the growth machine in the longer term," said StepStone chief executive Colin Tenwick.

"While the credit crunch might be dismissed in boardrooms as a short-term speed bump, it would be folly for Western businesses rushing to invest in high-growth Asian economies such as China and India to ignore the clear signs of longer-term talent shortages in Asia," he added.

"This research shows that many companies will have to prepare themselves for a huge battle for talent, one that is even tougher than in Europe and North America," he continued.

"Asia is seen as the engine for growth but without the right people, businesses will see their engine splutter and may not get out of first gear. Without a clear, formal talent management strategy in place, companies will find it difficult to get – and more importantly, keep – the people they need and may struggle to realise the growth they are promising their shareholders," added Tenwick.

Globally, too, business leaders were unanimous in agreeing that recruiting and retaining talented employees was getting tougher.

Nearly half felt it was becoming slightly more difficult and four out of 10 believed it was becoming significantly more difficult.

Yet, despite this, only a quarter of organisations surveyed had a formal, company-wide talent management strategy in place and 16 per cent did not have a talent management strategy at all.

"To compete for the best people it is clear from this report that many organisations need to address how they are going to manage their talent in a far more structured way or they place their ability to grow under serious threat," said Tenwick.

"Given the low number of businesses with a formal talent management strategy in place, it' s unsurprising that a third of respondents said their organisation was poor at forecasting talent requirements and retaining talent in the organisation," he added.

While it was in Asia where recruitment and retention difficulties were most acute, business leaders in Western Europe and North America also agreed that employee career switching would be a major issue in fuelling talent shortages there.

However, business leaders in the U.S. and Europe were in general more concerned at the effects of an ageing population and lack of education and development opportunities.

"The difficulty in finding talent coupled with an ageing workforce presents a serious challenge particularly to businesses in developed economies in Western Europe and North America," Tenwick pointed out.

"With almost half of executives in those regions viewing an increased use of older workers in a positive light, it appears likely that we will see more older workers returning to the workforce or perhaps postponing retirement to fill skills gaps," he added.

WALTHAM, Mass., Jan 31, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- SLRY | news | PowerRating | PR Charts -- Salary.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: SLRY), a leading provider of on-demand compensation and talent management solutions, today announced financial results for its third quarter of fiscal 2008, which ended December 31, 2007. Third quarter revenue was $9.2 million, an increase of 52% from the third quarter of fiscal 2007 and 8% sequentially.

Cash flow from operations was $2.3 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2008, compared to $1.4 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2007 and $1.5 million in the prior quarter. Year-to-date operating cash flow was $5.4 million, compared to $2.0 million in the same period in the prior year, an increase of over 170%. Total deferred revenue was $20.9 million at the end of the quarter, an increase of 36% year-over-year and 14% sequentially.

Kent Plunkett, founder and chief executive officer stated, "Q3 was a solid quarter, highlighted by record revenue, expansion of our customer base, and continued strong cash flow generation. In the third quarter we expanded our product offerings with enriched data sets for our compensation management solutions and we added key competencies to our talent management solution, which gained additional traction in the quarter."

Skills Shortages and High Wage Demands Greet Companies Expanding in Asia – On Top of Credit Crunch

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Companies looking to expand in Asia are bracing themselves for significant difficulties in recruiting and retaining skilled employees and a high wage bill as the war for talent in the region intensifies, according to a major global research report of business leaders’ views released today by StepStone (OSE:STP), one of the world’s largest providers of on-demand, talent management solutions.

The StepStone Total Talent Report 2008, researched and prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit, concludes that “the idea of Asia as low-cost utopia with an abundance of labour is long-gone”.

Executives in Asia cited four major recruitment and retention obstacles which businesses faced:

rising wage and pay demands among potential candidates

a lack of suitable candidates to recruit and a lack of appropriate skills among potential candidates

a perceived lack of career opportunities among current employees

employee perceptions that pay and benefits could be better elsewhere

Asian business leaders also feared an increasing expectation among employees to switch careers and jobs as the most likely cause of talent shortages in their organisation over the next three years.

Sub-prime be damned: Asia remains the long term growth prospect

Despite the difficulties, 44 per cent of all business leaders surveyed globally believed the Asia-Pacific region offered their business the best opportunities for revenue growth over the next three years, shaking off short-term fears of the sub-prime led credit crunch for a positive longer-term view. Eighty-seven per cent of global business leaders expected either slight or significant improvement in their company’s growth prospects over the next three years, with only 29 per cent saying the rising cost of credit had caused them to be less optimistic about their organisation’s future prospects.

“While recent surveys and financial analyst predictions indicate a drop in business confidence in the next year, it’s clear that most business executives are still bullish on Asia as the growth machine in the longer term,” StepStone CEO, Colin Tenwick, said.

“While the credit crunch might be dismissed in boardrooms as a short-term speed bump, it would be folly for Western businesses rushing to invest in high-growth Asian economies such as China and India to ignore the clear signs of longer-term talent shortages in Asia. This research shows that many companies will have to prepare themselves for a huge battle for talent, one that is even tougher than in Europe and North America.

“Asia is seen as the engine for growth but without the right people, businesses will see their engine splutter and may not get out of first gear. Without a clear, formal talent management strategy in place, companies will find it difficult to get – and more importantly, keep – the people they need and may struggle to realise the growth they are promising their shareholders.”

Recruitment grows tougher globally

Globally, business leaders unanimously agreed that recruiting and retaining talented employees was getting tougher – 46.5 per cent saying it was becoming slightly more difficult and 41 per cent believing it was becoming significantly more difficult. Yet only a quarter of organisations surveyed had a formal, company-wide talent management strategy in place and a staggering 16 per cent did not have a talent management strategy at all.

“To compete for the best people it is clear from this report that many organisations need to address how they are going to manage their talent in a far more structured way or they place their ability to grow under serious threat,” Mr Tenwick said.

“Given the low number of businesses with a formal talent management strategy in place, it’s unsurprising that a third of respondents said their organisation was poor at forecasting talent requirements and retaining talent in the organisation.”

While it was in Asia where recruitment and retention difficulties were most acute, business leaders in Western Europe and North America agreed that employee career switching would be a major issue in fuelling talent shortages. However, they were more concerned than their Asian counterparts of the effects of an ageing population and a lack of alignment between education and the needs of business.

Older workers will return

“The difficulty in finding talent coupled with an ageing workforce presents a serious challenge particularly to businesses in developed economies in Western Europe and North America. With almost half of executives in those regions viewing an increased use of older workers in a positive light, it appears likely that we will see more older workers returning to the workforce or perhaps postponing retirement to fill skills gaps,” Mr Tenwick said.

The report found that organisations are also building their own online recruitment portals, turning to headhunters and outsourcing work to cover skills gaps. Middle management is the talent ‘pain point’ for most businesses – finding commercial and business unit heads was the number one recruitment headache, followed by staff in operations, sales and marketing, and information technology.

Employees in operations and sales and marketing were cited as the hardest to retain, with organisations using money as their greatest weapon in keeping staff – 64 per cent increasing pay and 48 per cent improving benefits to hang on to key employees. Other popular strategies included improving training, introducing mentoring programmes and flexible working hours.

The credit crunch – still a factor

“With most economies growing and shortages of talent becoming common, candidates and employees have held the upper hand in workplace negotiations in recent years. However with the fallout from the sub-prime financial crisis taking root and speculation that a U.S. recession could trigger a global business slowdown, the position of power in employment negotiations may soon change,” Mr Tenwick said.

While recent business surveys and financial analyst speculation around the world have pointed to reduced business confidence as a result of the credit crunch, executives who responded to the EIU research had a more positive long-term view. In September/October 2007 (during the first stage of the sub-prime impact), 87 per cent of executives polled believed their organisation’s growth prospects would improve over the next three years, and this view still held true in December when the wider impact of the credit crunch was being felt: 90 per cent believed growth prospects would improve over next three years.

“In potentially volatile economic conditions, not only is a talent management strategy vital but so is technology which allows an organisation to put the strategy into action and identify where talent gaps exist, or where headcount could be reduced. Whichever way the world economy turns, having the knowledge and agility to make swift decisions on the company’s employee base could make all the difference in being able to retaining the best people and maintaining business momentum.”

The StepStone Total Talent Report 2008 is available to download at www.stepstone.com.

About the research

The Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed 392 senior executives from the around the globe during September/October 2007, with most respondents from Asia (29%), Western Europe (28%) and North America (21%). The survey sample was extremely senior: all were management, with 67% operating as board members, CEOs and other C-level executives, or as senior vice-presidents, heads of business units and heads of departments. The executives surveyed represented all key employer sectors, including financial services (20%), professional services (14%), IT and technology (8%), manufacturing (7%), energy and natural resources (7%) and healthcare (5%). The organisations that the respondents worked for were predominantly large: 34% had annual revenues between $500m and $10bn, with 20% generating revenues of $10bn or more. In December 2007, the Economist Intelligence Unit re-surveyed senior executives to gauge the impact of the sub-prime credit crunch on business outlook.

The Economist Intelligence Unit's editorial team executed the online survey, conducted the interviews and wrote the report.

About the Economist Intelligence Unit

The Economist Intelligence Unit is the business information arm of The Economist Group, publisher of The Economist. Through our global network of more than 700 analysts and contributors, we continuously assess and forecast political, economic and business conditions in 200 countries. As the world's leading provider of country intelligence, we help executives make better business decisions by providing timely, reliable and impartial analysis on worldwide market trends and business strategies.

About StepStone

StepStone is one of the world’s largest providers of on-demand, talent management solutions, offering a portfolio of technology, software and online services that enable organisations to attract, recruit, develop, retain and manage the best available talent.

StepStone Online operates some of Europe’s largest and most successful Total Talent Communities, covering 13 countries and attracting 1.9million visitors each week. StepStone’s Total Talent Management Software Solutions are a range of on-demand services which enable organisations to manage the entire employee lifecycle, from initial attraction, through pre-hire online recruitment, on-boarding and post hire performance management including compensation management, skills and competency management and employee training and development. StepStone recently completed the acquisition of ExecuTRACK, a global leader in strategic Talent Management, which extends StepStone's Total Talent Management solutions portfolio.

Thousands of organisations including Aviva, Amey, Royal Bank of Scotland, AXA, British Airways, Xerox and Fiat use StepStone's products and services to help them recruit qualified staff globally. Founded in Norway in 1996, StepStone was the only European-headquartered vendor to be recognised as a ‘leader’ by Gartner, Inc’s recent "Magic Quadrant for E-Recruitment Software, 2006” report.

NEW YORK (AP) - Online job listings company Monster Worldwide Inc. on Thursday said its fourth-quarter profit rose more than 15 percent on strong international revenue growth.

The company reported net income of $45 million, or 36 cents per share, compared with $39.1 million, or 30 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Revenue jumped to $354 million from $298.6 million, driven by a more than 59 percent jump in international revenue to $143.3 million.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected a profit of 38 cents per share on revenue of $352.7 million.

For 2007, Monster reported a profit of $146.4 million, or $1.12 per share, compared with $37.1 million, or 28 cents per share, in 2006.

"Despite the current weaker economic environment, we are optimistic about our longer-term growth prospects," Sal Iannuzzi, the company's chairman and chief executive, said in a release.

Shares of Monster Worldwide dipped 76 cents to $27.85 in regular trading. In aftermarket activity, they added 85 cents, or 3.1 percent, to $28.70.