Category: "News of China"
Graduates pick study over job market
November 30th, 2009More than 30 percent of college graduates choose postgraduate study over job hunting because they believe looking for work is too difficult, a study shows.
Zhang Xiaochu, director of Haidian human resource service center, said 33.7 percent of the 2,641 college students surveyed said they would study for a higher degree, including 8.58 percent of respondents who want to study abroad.
He said the employment situation remains challenging because of the financial crisis, intense competition and the gap between employers' expectations and the capability of graduates.
The Beijing municipal education commission said last week that there were about 209,000 university graduates in Beijing in 2009 and more than 10,000 graduates have still not found a job.
These people will continue to fight for jobs against 219,000 fresh graduates in 2010, making job hunting even more intense.
"We can not find satisfactory jobs and so many classmates of mine choose to study further," said Cui Yan, who graduated from Capital University of Economics and Business in the summer of 2009.
He said 10 out of the 34 people in his class who did not find jobs immediately are planning to study further.
Cui was employed at a public relations agency in July but quit because he thought the job was too hard and the wage too low. He said many of his classmates had similar wage expectations.
"I think our mentality has a little problem," Cui said.
He said they cannot put up with the busy work and are not satisfied with their salary.
The report from Zhang's center also found employers need employees who can work independently as soon as possible, but the biggest problems graduates face is a lack of experience.
The Haidian human resource service center and the Renmin University of China conducted the survey in July.
As many as 3,275 questionnaires were sent out to 36 colleges in Beijing and 2,641 effective replies were collected, about 70 percent of who will graduate in 2010.
Pressure builds on employees
November 27th, 2009Nearly nine out of 10 Chinese workers are under growing pressure at work as China leads the world toward economic recovery, a global survey has found.
The survey by Regus, a US-based provider of workplace solutions, polled 11,000 companies in 13 countries during August and September. It found 58 percent of companies worldwide had seen a rise in workplace stress during the preceding two years.
"Nearly 86 percent of Chinese people report that their levels of stress had become 'higher' or 'much higher' during the past two years," the survey noted.
The smallest increase in stress worldwide was felt in Germany and the Netherlands, with a respective 48 percent and 47 percent of workers saying they had experienced more stress.
With the World Bank forecasting China's GDP will grow by 8.4 percent this year, indicating the country is well on the way to recovery, Chinese workers are at the sharp end of the world's efforts to rebound.
"While their international counterparts feel stressed as a result of the global economic downturn, the stress faced by Chinese workers is twofold," said Hans Leijten, regional vice-president of East Asia for the Regus Group. "On the one hand, they must react fast to the new opportunities provided by a country that maintains a higher-than-8-percent GDP growth. On the other hand, they have to deal with the retraction challenges presented by the global economic downturn."
About 42 percent of Chinese workers said they were particularly stressed about the increasing focus on profitability.
Among the stressed workers, 28 percent said maintaining excellent levels of customer service was the main reason for their sleepless nights.
Another survey, from the Horizon Research Group, said respondents quizzed in June complained that the global financial crisis had contributed to rising pressure among Chinese workers.
About 34.2 percent of people interviewed for that survey said the crisis had increased workplace pressure.
Those most affected by the added stress were in the 24-30 age group and the majority worked for foreign-invested enterprises, the report said.
Most of the pressure at work came from career development, performance appraisal and salary issues.
In the midst of the downturn, employees were involved in fewer malpractices, were more likely to volunteer to do overtime and more inclined to postpone planned leave.
Both surveys reflect Chinese society, where many employees are inclined to put in long hours.
"Karoshi", or death from chronic overworking, is no longer a phenomenon reserved for the Japanese. In China, there have been reports of employees dying on the job. Early this month, a young software engineer at a video website died at his desk after putting in a series of 13-hour days.
"The pressure does not necessarily ease with different economic situations," said Sam Liu, a 31-year-old marketing strategy manager with a global company. "You have one kind of pressure in good times and another kind in bad times.
"I have time to sleep. But I have to sacrifice my hobbies and the time I would like to spend with my friends."
Among the reasons why some Chinese people work so hard is the massive competition within the vast workforce.
"There is always another guy who is willing to do 12 things when your boss has asked you to do 10 things.
"You deal with the pressure or you quit," Liu said. "It is up to you."
College graduates job fair opens in Nanjing
November 24th, 2009The annual college graduates job-hunting fair has also opened in Nanjing of Jiangsu Province. Over 42,000 employment opportunities from nearly 1,000 companies are being offered at the event. Figure show, that Jiangsu Province will have a record high of 532,000 fresh college graduates this year. But the event participating companies is only offering 3 percent more jobs compared with a year ago.
In order to get employed, many graduates have lowered their expectations for salaries. Experts say, one of the best ways to boost the employment rate is to improve program designs at universities.
Wang Shufeng, Head of Student Enroll of China Institute of Industrial Relations said "Previously, our graduates could not find a suitable position even after taking 10 job interviews. After some research and study, we realized that our school program and training designs should meet the real social human resource demand. So now, 90 percent of our students today could seal a employment contract before official graduation ceremony."
Professor Cheng Yanyuan, School of Industrial Relations & HR, Renmin University said "Professional schools at high education institutions should focus on the areas they are good at. They should be able to provide professional talents in specific fields. Program designs at big universities should also have some adjustments to emphasis their unique characteristics. "
Hong Kong's unemployment rate fell slightly to 5.2%
November 23rd, 2009HONG KONG, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong's unemployment rate for the three months ended October fell slightly to 5.2 percent, the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government said Tuesday.
The unemployment rate in the three-month period ended September, in comparison, was 5.3 percent, while that in the three-month period ended August was 5.4 percent.
Decreases in the unemployment rate were mainly observed in the construction, food services, insurance and wholesale sectors, the department said.
The Labor and Welfare Department said the further decrease reflected that the labor market has continued to show signs of improvement along with economic recovery.
"In particular, the unemployment rate of youths aged 15 to 19 dropped notably by 3 percentage points to 22.7 percent, indicating that the youth employment situation is gradually improving," Secretary for Labor and Welfare Matthew Cheung said.
"It is clear that the (HKSAR) government's all-out efforts to create jobs in the construction sector are continuing to bear fruit," he added.
Cheung said the near-term outlook would depend mainly on the pace of the economic recovery and job creation.
"As business conditions continue to improve, employers are expected to adopt a more positive attitude towards new hiring. This will ease the pressure on unemployment," he said.
Nevertheless, Cheung said the decrease in total employment in the latest round of figures suggested that it might take some time for the labor market to keep up with the pace of economic rebound.
"A sustained and solid recovery still hinges on a fundamental improvement in the external environment. We will remain vigilant and continue to monitor closely the labor market situation," he said.
Macao's median monthly employment earnings remains stable in Q3
November 20th, 2009MACAO, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- The median monthly employment earnings of the employed population in Macao amounted to 8,500 patacas (1,076 U.S. dollars) in the third quarter of this year, the same level as that of the second quarter, according to the figures released Thursday by the city's Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).
The figures showed that the median monthly employment earnings of the employed residents held stable as the previous quarter in the period, at 10,000 patacas (1,265 U.S. dollars).
Total labor force in Macao stood at 328,000 in the third quarter, with 316,000 being employed. Analyzed by industry, the majority of the employed were engaging in recreational, cultural, gaming and other services (23.2 percent) and hotels, restaurants and similar activities (14.1 percent).
Meanwhile, the unemployed population was 12,000 in the period, of which 82.4 percent were searching for a new job, while 17.6 percent were fresh labor force entrants searching for their first job. With regard to the educational attainment, 34.6 percent of the unemployed had primary education or lower, 29 percent had junior secondary education and 19.8 percent had senior secondary education, according to the DSEC.
China Career Builder Corp. Announces Signed Letter of Intent to Acquire Issac Search Ltd
November 17th, 2009China Career Builder Corp., ("The Company or CCB") (PINK SHEETS: CCBX) a Delaware Corporation, is focused on outsourcing human resource services and staffing services in Hong Kong, China. Today, the company is pleased to announce has signed a Letter of Intent to acquires 49 percents of Issac Search Ltd of Hong Kong. This acquisition is consistent with the company's Strategic Business Plan, designed to build enterprise value through organic growth and select acquisition opportunities. The company is expected to complete satisfactory due diligence in the next Three (3) weeks, and complete the acquisition by the end of Q4, 2009 or early Q1 2010.
"We have been selectively considering strategic alliance or acquisition candidates for some time to achieve CCB's strategic vision. We are confident this acquisition with Issac Search Ltd enhances that vision and provides the elements required to expedite our business model," added CCB's President, Mona Yim.
ABOUT THE COMPANY
China Career Builder Corp. (The Company) through its subsidiary Asian Career Company Ltd. provides outsourcing human resource services and staffing services in Hong Kong, China. The company provides recruitment services focusing on the professional, management, clerical, administrative, IT and industrial market. Its services include screening, recruiting, training, workforce deployment, loss prevention and safety training, pre-employment testing and assessment, background searches, compensation program design, customized personnel management reports, job profiling, description, application, turnover tracking and analysis, opinion surveys and follow-up analysis, exit interviews and follow-up analysis, and management development skills workshops. The company markets its recruitment services through a combination of direct sales, telemarketing, trade shows, and advertising. The company incorporated in Delaware, headquartered in Hong Kong, China.
For further information please refer to the Company's website at www.ChinaCareerBuilder.com
If you would like to receive regular updates on China Career Builder Corp. please send your email request to info@ChinaCareerBuilder.com or contact the company's Investor and Public relations at ir@ChinaCareerBuilder.com .
HSBC pledges no job cuts in Hong Kong
November 10th, 2009HSBC (0005) says it has no plans to lay off staff in Hong Kong. The assurance comes one day after the lender said it was axing 1,700 employees in Britain.
"It's really the British side's affair," said Vincent Cheng Hoi-chuen, chairman of local arm Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. "The European economy is not faring well, so it's not surprising to have positions reduced or natural wastage to compete better."
Cheng said in Hong Kong the bank has been recruiting staff, especially for frontline jobs.
HSBC sacked some 650 workers late last year and early 2009 when the global financial crisis began to bite hard, but hired 100 people in August.
And its insurance business said earlier this week it is hiring more financial services officers. HSBC will continue its Asian expansion while maintaining its present scale of its business in Britain, Cheng said.
UK rivals Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group received bailouts totaling 46.5 billion (HK$595.11 billion) from the British government, but Cheng said HSBC is not facing any financial pressure.
He added the US$18 billion (HK$140.4 billion) raised from a rights issue earlier this year has yet to be used.
Cheng refuted claims that a 508 million yuan (HK$576.63 million) premium HSBC paid for its joint venture with the Bank of Communications (3328) is unfair, saying the local lender is very positive about its partner's credit card business development in the mainland.
Cheng believes recent moderate property price adjustments have not affected HSBC's mortgage business, adding more affordable homes may even give it a boost.
Shanghai Salary Raises Slow
November 9th, 2009Employees in China’s richest city, Shanghai, saw salaries stagnate this year – at least compared with what they have grown used to.
They can’t expect much of a pick-up in 2010 either. Perhaps worse for many Shanghai workers used to ever-upward mobility is that its people will do merely as well as the rest of China.
Human-resources firm Hewitt Associates LLC on Thursday predicted average annual salary increases will be 7% in 2010, about equal to what is expected nationwide.
That won’t necessarily make things comfortable for employers. Hewitt’s Shanghai Compensation and Benefits Study concludes that for employers, it will be back to the challenge of hiring enough good workers: “In order to hire more talent, enterprises have put salary increases on the agenda.”
The study, which included 911 enterprise participants, shows the average annual salary increase in 2009 in Shanghai was 5.2% in the non-manufacturing sector and 5.4% in the manufacturing sector, about half the 11.2% and 10.1% increases seen in those sectors in 2008. The average lagged the national level of a 5.8% increase in salaries in 2009.
“As an international financial metropolis, Shanghai is inevitably influenced by financial crisis,” the firm said.
Rather than layoffs, it found salary freezes in Shanghai this year. The voluntary rate of turnover – job-hopping – slid 3.4 percentage points in 2009 to 13.9%, the firm found.
The employees still commanding good increases this year: pharmaceutical and medical-device firms, up 8.9% and 9.1% respectively.
The market for new job seekers was tougher than ever. The average starting salary for a fresh university graduate was 45,153 yuan ($6,615) this year, while post-graduates could earn 63,732 yuan.
Separately, Standard Chartered Bank economist Stephen Green, in a report Thursday, takes issue with the conclusions reached in China’s effort to track urban private sector wages. He said the National Bureau of Statistics study probably captures only about 42% of the nation’s 450 million workers. Since the ones missed are likely lower-paid migrant workers, the official statistics probably overstate actual wages, said his report.
Mr. Green puts the urban wage at 1,476 yuan a month, compared with the government’s estimate of 2,077 yuan.
Many Guangzhou workers face salary cuts, job losses
November 6th, 2009Many workers in Guangzhou are facing salary cuts or job losses, as both the private and the public sectors struggle in the midst of the economic crisis.
As many as 40 percent of the State-owned enterprises (SOEs), or government-controlled shareholding companies, have reduced or plan to reduce staff salaries in the prosperous southern metropolis, according to a recent survey conducted by Guangzhou Urban Survey and Research Center.
More than 50 percent of the city's privately-operated companies have cut jobs in the past months, according to the survey.
But less than 10 percent of the Party and government departments and bureaus have cut staff or reduced salaries.
"Many SOEs have run into difficulties this year because of the worldwide financial crisis," said a manager from a local SOE yesterday.
Requiring staffs to increase their days off, limiting overtime working hours, reducing salaries and cutting staff have become common measures to fight the financial crisis, said the manager who declined to be named.
"I hoped all the staff can join hands with us to conquer the difficulties," he added.
More than 83 percent of Cantonese people said their lives have been affected by the financial crisis in the past months, the survey showed.
Only 16 percent of the interviewees said their lives have remained unchanged under the economic slump.
And more than 78 percent of the interviewees are cautiously optimistic about salary increases in 2010.
The survey interviewed 1,016 residents in the city's downtown districts of Yuexiu, Liwan, Haizhu, Tianhe, Baiyun and Huangpu in September.
Chen Zhaomin, a staffer from a logistics company, said his monthly salary has not been reduced, but all his allowances for travel, telecommunication and entertainment have either been cancelled or sharply reduced.
"And I have not worked any overtime this year, because my boss cannot pay me overtime," Chen told China Daily yesterday.
Chen estimated his annual income would decrease by about 20 percent this year.
And Wang Cuihong, an accountant from a private firm, said that since the beginning of the year her company has forced staff to take an additional 20 days off every six months.
Also, the staff are usually given only 20 percent of their wages when they are on holidays, Wang said.
Affected by the income reduction, Wang and her family have cut daily living expenses by at least 10 percent this year, she said.
Wuxi is ready to become a 'little India'
November 3rd, 2009Wuxi, a picturesque city that lies along the Taihu Lake resort, is planning to build a "little India" in years to come.
Wuxi is traditionally a manufacturing city. But with more focus on environmental protection, especially after a serious blue-green algae outbreak in Taihu Lake that triggered a clean water crisis in mid-2007, city leaders started to study how to transform the city's development.
Wuxi decided to replace manufacturing with the service outsourcing industry, which has far less pollution and consumes much less energy.
According to its ambitious development plan, the city is expected to attract $30 billion to $40 billion in service outsourcing business and help create service outsourcing jobs for 1 million people by 2020 - equivalent to that of India as a whole in 2007.
The advancement of the service outsourcing industry cannot survive without a large talent pool.
But the city three years ago learned that fewer than 2,000 students in the city were studying software and information technology fields.
As a result, Wuxi established a goal to build a total area of 6 million sq m for software service outsourcing within three years, and encouraged enterprises to cultivate and import skilled workers.
These policies were well received. In 2008, Wuxi's service outsourcing business accounted for 39.2 percent of companies in Jiangsu province, and the city employed 28.5 percent of Jiangsu province's service industry employees, according to Fang Wei, deputy mayor of Wuxi.
Growing jobs
This year, the Wuxi government launched a new program to train university graduates. Outsourcing companies will receive a rebate of 4,000 yuan ($586) for hiring a graduate, and every graduate of the training program will receive 1,000 yuan as a subsidy.
The city's financial sector is also actively providing financial support to enterprises in the service outsourcing industry.
In February, Wuxi became one of 20 cities approved by the General Office of the State Council to build a service outsourcing demonstration city.
In June, 15 banks provided a credit line of more than 4 billion yuan for the city's 115 service outsourcing enterprises.
The local government joined India's National Institute of Information Technologies (NIIT), the world's second-largest educational institution, to establish the NIIT (China) Outsourcing College in Wuxi as a training base for the city's outsourcing businesses.
While the domestic macro-economy continues to be affected by the global financial crisis, outsourcing is maintaining robust growth in Wuxi.
The city signed $1.14 billion in contracts from January to July, up 110 percent year-on-year.
Experts estimated that by 2010, there will be as many as 100 international service outsourcing and software exports enterprises with annual export values of as much as $30 million.
So far, Wuxi has attracted 22 investment projects from leading multinational service outsourcing corporations and 50 domestic industry heavyweights. Half of China's top 10 industry heavyweights have established headquarters in Wuxi.
But Fang is looking at bigger goals. "Wuxi is on its way to becoming a 'little India'," he said.
After India matured as the world's largest service-outsourcing base, many East Asian countries - including the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam - began competing for more market share.
"Enterprises from the Chinese mainland haven't had much advantage in competing with these countries, but the cooperation across the Straits should bring some opportunities," said Zhou Ming, deputy director of the China Council for International Investment Promotion (CCIIP).
The service sector accounts for more than 70 percent of the island province's total GDP.
Zhou said Taiwan's industrial development experience, technology and branding, along with a massive market and substantial human resources on the Chinese mainland, will greatly enhance the international competitiveness of both regions.
In spite of the financial crisis, the global service outsourcing industry posted a growth rate of 6.3 percent in 2008 - a strong performance in comparison to the world's average GDP of 2.5 percent.
Many developing countries see the outsourcing industry as an opportunity to survive the international economic downturn, experts said.
Taiwan jobless rate drops slightly
November 2nd, 2009TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Taiwan's jobless rate dropped to 6.04 percent in September, 0.09 percentage points down from a record high recorded in the previous month, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said yesterday. However, the seasonally adjusted rate hit a record high of 6.09 percent, up from the 6.07 percent recorded in August, the agency said.
In September, the number of unemployed people totaled 661,000, down 11,000 from the previous month, when a record 6.13 percent was recorded, due mainly to new graduates flooding the job market.
According to the results of a survey released Thursday, some 48 percent of the people who lost their jobs over the past year did so involuntarily, and the unemployed were jobless for six months on average.
The results of the survey conducted Oct. 8-21 by the online human resources company 1111 Job Bank show that 21.34 percent of the unemployed were jobless for more than a year, 12.23 percent were jobless for two or three months, and 11.03 percent took one month to find a new job.
An executive in charge of public relations at 1111 Job Bank attributed the high ratio of long-term job seekers to their lack of ability, their slim competitive edge and their unrealistic expectations of their prospects.
The number of job applications sent out by each unemployed person averaged 81, for a total of just six interviews, according to the survey results.
Since July, the number of jobs has been increasing month by month , but with the influx of large numbers of new graduates into the job market, the unemployment situation has not improved much, according to the executive.
A total of 1,431 valid samples were collected for the survey, which had a margin of error of 2.24 percent and a confidence level of 95 percent.
China's Call Center Sector to Hit CNY 10bn Revenue in 2010
October 29th, 2009BEIJING, Oct 15, 2009 (SinoCast Daily Business Beat via COMTEX) -- The Chinese call center industry is predicted to have a revenue of CNY 10 billion in all during 2010, Wang Jun, chief engineer of the government and enterprise customer division of China Telecom Corporation Ltd. (NYSE: CHA, SEHK: 0728), one of the nation's Big Three telecommunications carriers, said at the China Call Center Industry Summit in Beijing on October 15.
The industry is expected to reach a 20% growth next year, the chief engineer estimated. The size of the call center outsourcing service market will rise to USD 20 billion in the Asia Pacific region in 2011.
However, China is weak in the competition for call center outsourcing services from Europe and the United States. The establishment of a call center is based on a similar culture environment, so Japan and South Korea choose China as their offshore outsourcing base.
In addition, the summit is held in Beijing on October 15 to 16.
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RBS aggressive in hiring talent in China
October 27th, 2009Royal Bank of Scotland, whose private banking entity in Singapore reported mass resignations by 70 employees recently, will continue to hire aggressively for its investment banking business in China, China Daily reported Thursday.
The bank would try to attract and retain talents in China and stick to its stated goal of becoming a top-five banking entity in the country, the newspaper said, citing John Hourican, chief executive of RBS' Global Banking and Markets operations.
The Edinburgh-based bank recently announced a barrage of new hires in China in a bid to beef up its investment banking business. Among the key appointments, the bank named Raymond Yin, who joined RBS from JP Morgan where he was chief representative and head of general industrials for the China market, as the co-head of investment banking for China.
The move comes in the backdrop of a battle for banking talent in Asian countries, especially in the private and investment banking sectors. Citigroup recently appointed Rodney Tsang, a senior investment banker with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, as co-head of its China investment banking team.
RBS is now 70-percent owned by the British government.
HK graduates start internships in Chinese mainland
October 23rd, 2009HONG KONG, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- About 200 university graduates in Hong Kong have or will soon set off to various Chinese mainland cities as interns, said a Hong Kong official on Tuesday.
The cities include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Foshan, Panyu and Hangzhou.
Speaking at a ceremony for the Internship Program for University Graduates on Tuesday, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government's Commissioner for Labor Cherry Tse said the program provides 4,000 places for university graduates to work as interns and receive training for six to 12 months in local or Chinese mainland enterprises. Up to 1,000 places are earmarked for Chinese mainland internships.
For local internships, graduates receive training in their capacity as employees and are paid wages commensurate with the duties, responsibilities and content of the training posts. An employer is eligible to receive a training subsidy of 2,000 HK dollars per intern per month.
Mainland internships are not premised on an employment relationship. Interns are entitled to a living allowance of 3,000 HK dollars per month and depending on circumstances, an accommodation allowance of 1,500 HK dollars per month from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government.
Tse said as of Oct. 15, about 1,000 graduates have been employed by local enterprises as interns under the program. Their average monthly salary is 8,800 HK dollars and the highest offer is 22,000 HK dollars.
HK unemployment rate records first drop amid global financial turmoil
October 22nd, 2009HONG KONG, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong's labor market has begun to improve as the latest seasonally adjusted unemployment rate recorded its first drop since the outbreak of the global financial turmoil last year, said the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government on Monday.
Hong Kong's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from 5.4percent in the June-August period to 5.3 percent in July-September. The underemployment rate remained unchanged at 2.4percent, the Census and Statistics Department said on Monday.
Secretary for Labor and Welfare Matthew Cheung said as business conditions gradually improve and the labor market stabilizes, employers may adopt a more positive attitude towards recruitment.
"This is expected to ease the pressure on the unemployment rate in the near term," Cheung said.
Total employment in July-September was 3,495,500, about the same as June-August which stood at 3,495,300. The labor force fell7, 400 to 3,704, 700 in July-September.
The number of unemployed fell 7,700 to 209,100 in July- September while the number of underemployed rose 1,700 to 89,900.
Falls in the unemployment rate were mainly observed in the construction, information and communications, arts, entertainment and recreation sectors.
The unemployment rate of people aged 15 to 19 fell 2.7 percent to 25.7 percent, showing that the local government's efforts to boost youth employment have begun to take effect.
Cheung also noted that the recovery path may still be uneven as overseas markets have yet to show visible improvement.
He said the government will promote employment on all fronts through training, retraining and skills upgrading.
Firms in China set to increase headcount
October 21st, 2009THE number of job openings on China's mainland is expected to rise in the fourth quarter after posting consecutive declines since last October, according to a report released yesterday by Hudson Recruitment Ltd, a global consulting company.
In the survey of 650 companies on the Chinese mainland, the Hudson Report concluded that 39 percent of them plan to increase headcount in the fourth quarter this year - a sharp increase from 27 percent in the last quarter.
More than half of the firms polled signaled that they will keep their payroll steady in the quarter. Only 5 percent of the companies are planning to cut their number of employees, a drop from 12 percent in the third quarter.
"Although the overall hiring expectations are still lower than a year ago, it is a clear sign that the job market is going on an upward trend," said Mark Carriban, managing director of Hudson Asia.
The study also showed that China reported the highest hiring expectations of the markets surveyed in Asia.
The banking and financial services sector posted the highest expectations of hiring and the greatest increase from the previous quarter. About 54 percent of respondents plan to hire more staff, up from 28 percent in the last quarter.
Expectations have also risen among information technology and telecommunication firms, with 53 percent of the respondents predicting hiring more, representing a substantial jump from 33 percent of the previous quarter.
The media, public relations and advertising companies have the lowest expectations of hiring intention, with 17 percent planning to increase payroll. But only 2 percent say they will shed staff this quarter, down from 17 percent in last quarter, the report said.
The Hudson Report is released quarterly after surveying about 2,000 key employment decision makers.
Good English ability helps people gain jobs, higher pay: survey
October 20th, 2009TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Proficiency in the English language helps create better job opportunities and brings comparatively higher pay for employees in Taiwan, according to the latest survey by an online employment agency. As high as 68 percent of enterprises or organizations in Taiwan include a good command of English among the major criteria when recruiting new employees. They are also willing to offer an average of NT$3,105 more in starting salaries to those with stronger competence in the international language.
The survey by online job agency www.1111.com.tw also shows that companies in the field of trading, product distribution, industrial and commercial services and education, as well as government agencies place the highest priority for English proficiency.
However, only 22 percent of salary earners presently possess credible English proficiency certificates.
A high percentage of job seekers — 67 percent — admit they lost interview opportunities when looking for new jobs because of inferior English capability.
The survey finds that 71.2 percent of employees believe that improved English ability will bring more employment opportunities and better positions with higher pay.
But among the 78.2 percent of employees who still have no English proficiency certificates, 64 percent acknowledged that their current level is still not up to the tests, while 36 percent said they even don't know how to prepare for such examinations.
A representative of the Educational Testing Service (ETS) of the U.S. stationed here said the average TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) score in Taiwan ranks at eighth place in the Asian region, falling behind China and South Korea.
The general English level of professionals like certified public accountants and lawyers, as well as R&D staff at electronics and other high-tech companies in Taiwan, is below international standards, hampering the nation's overall competitiveness in the world market, he said.
But he also pointed out that the number of people taking the TOEIC certifying test here has continued to increase in recent years, rising to 180,000 in 2008 from about 40,000 in 2004.
This shows that more people in Taiwan have become aware of the important role of English language in their careers.
Another positive development is that the average TOEIC score of marketing staff here has risen above the level of people in similar positions around the world, he said.
The survey of English proficiency and job opportunities, covering 488 employees and 1,465 employees, was carried out islandwide Oct. 1-14 this year.
China's central government to recruit 15,000 staff
October 19th, 2009The 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.
China manufacturing steady in September: index
October 16th, 2009SHANGHAI — China's manufacturing activity continued to expand at a steady rate in September, as domestic and overseas demand continued to improve, an independent survey published Wednesday indicated.
The HSBC China Manufacturing PMI, or purchasing managers index, fell slightly to 55.0 in September, from 55.1 in August.
A reading above 50 nevertheless means the sector is expanding, while a reading below 50 indicates an overall decline.
"Although the headline PMI remained broadly unchanged from the previous month, there was a marked expansion of manufacturing employment in September," the bank's chief China economist Hongbin Qu said.
Manufacturers were hiring in September at the fastest rate in 25 months to keep up with rising sales volumes, HSBC said in a research note.
Foreign order levels rose for a fourth straight month, but the increase in total new orders outpaced export sales, suggesting domestic demand was driving the overall improvement, the bank said.
China's economy expanded by 7.9 percent in the second quarter of the year, up from 6.1 percent in the first quarter, mainly as a result of massive government spending amid the global downturn.
Beijing announced a four-trillion-yuan (585-billion-dollar) stimulus package last year in a bid to prop up growth in the country by boosting investment in infrastructure and other government-backed projects.
The PMI sank to a record low of 38.8 in November as the global financial crisis took hold, but improved continuously in the following months, moving above 50 in March.
Manufacturing accounted for more than 40 percent of China's economic output last year, which has been hit hard by evaporating demand for its products in key export markets such as the United States and Europe.
City job market recovering from financial crisis
October 15th, 2009THE city's job market is recovering from the global economic downturn with the number of jobs created at the same level as before the crisis, the Shanghai Human Resources and Social Security Bureau said yesterday.
The number of jobs available in the city's human resources market exceeded 120,000 in August, almost the same as last October when the financial crisis began to affect the job market in Shanghai.
Of these, the number of new jobs reached 40,000. Though still 20.43 percent fewer new jobs were created compared with last year, the figure was much lower than February's 72.9 percent rate of decline over the previous year.
"Since the economy is getting better in the city and the government has launched a series of jobs-boosting measures, the job market is stepping out of the downturn and getting better," said Li Ying, of the department of promoting employment in the Shanghai Human Resources and Social Security Bureau.
However, the bureau didn't release figures for the unemployment rate.
Shanghai reported a registered unemployment rate of 4.3 percent last year. Local authorities pledged to create 500,000 job positions this year, with an unemployment rate controlled at about 4.5 percent.
From January to August, the city created 466,800 new jobs, helped 11,370 business startups, and provided vocational training to 105,300 people after a series of job stimulus efforts was launched at the beginning of this year.
The stimulus packages featured preferential policies for business startups, vocational training and internship plans for fresh graduates.
Flextronics to hire 7,000
October 14th, 2009HONG KONG - ELECTRONICS manufacturing giant Flextronics International said on Tuesday it will hire more than 6,000 migrant workers in mainland China this month because of a rise in demand ahead of Christmas.
The company will also take on an additional 1,000 workers in the next two months, Valerie Kurniawan, senior communications director for Flextronics Asia, told AFP.
'The demand is coming from all over the group, it's all segments and industries,' Ms Kurniawan said.
Flextronics makes parts and equipment for the automotive and mobile phone industries among others and its clients include Hewlett-Packard, Motorola and Microsoft Corp. The company's latest hiring spree has focused on its Zhuhai Industrial Park in the Pearl River Delta in the south of the country.
Chinese factories have been rushing to hire migrant workers laid off during the global crisis as they ramp up production but analysts have warned that the labour shortage stems from a short-term rise in demand from Christmas orders rather than a recovery in China's key export sector.
Nearly 20 million migrant workers lost their jobs at the start of the year as factories closed or slashed production in response to plummeting export orders from key markets in Europe and the United States.
Job seekers switch to online business
October 13th, 2009Wang Dengfeng works as an interior decorator, but he is never splattered with paint at the end of the day and he has not once hurt his back moving furniture.
Instead of decorating stores and homes in the three-dimensional world, the 31-year-old designs and beautifies shops in the virtual world, making them appealing to online shoppers.
The career earns him between 5,000 yuan ($735) and 10,000 yuan each month, an income considered handsome, even for white-collar workers in big cities.
Wang is among an increasing number of Chinese young people earning their living online.
According to a recent popular online post, there are at least 36 kinds of online jobs, including online hourly workers and online shop assistants.
It is not known how many people make their living in the online world. Many work online part-time.
One of the most successful online workers is Kuang Baoqiang, from Yangjiang, Guangdong province, who earned more than 100,000 yuan last year as a professional blogger.
Kuang started to write blogs about basketball on sina.com.cn in 2006.
He has posted some 1,200 blogs, and attracted more than 38 million visits so far.
His popularity earned him a contract last year from a domestic firm that makes sports products that wanted to advertise on his blog.
Vivian Lin, from Jiangsu province, failed to secure a satisfying job after she graduated from college in 2005. Last month, after being unemployed for six months, she opened an online shop "Lin club" in the hopes of following in the footsteps of such online success stories as Kuang and Wang.
"A satisfying job is not easy to find nowadays," she said. "But shopping and web surfing happen to be my two hobbies, so I decided to give it a shot."
The shop has not got off the ground yet, but she has high hopes.
"I have much more to learn before I can make real money through this job," she said.
Experts believe online employment will become increasingly important for unemployed young people.
Chen Xinming, a professor with South China Normal University, said young people should be encouraged to explore the option. But Chen said more study of the growing sector is needed to make sure young online workers are not exploited.
Guest Comment: the state of recruitment in Hong Kong
October 12th, 2009During the first six months of 2009, Hong Kong was inundated with retrenchments, salary cuts and hiring freezes, but the third quarter saw optimistic signs of a recovering hiring market.
The number of bank positions available swelled by about 20 per cent in Q3, with most of these jobs in the front-office.
Mainland Chinese banks in Hong Kong, for example, are already aggressively seeking to increase headcount in their global markets divisions. They report a high demand for relationship managers, sales professionals and retail brand managers to meet their growing needs.
Such developments are largely due to China’s advocacy of a “two financial centres” model. Hong Kong’s free market economy, together with Shanghai’s broad integration of mainland business and legal traditions, create an environment which is both competitive and complementary and which will assist the future growth of a financial infrastructure in Greater China.
However, despite the general recruitment surge, many banks are only cautiously optimistic. Although the number of bank job opportunities has increased, employers have imposed stricter hiring requirements during the selection process. Most notably, the number of interview rounds each candidate now goes through has increased to at least four or five, up from two or three in 2008.
Meanwhile, candidates have more or less tempered their salary expectations. Many unemployed job seekers see the value in being more flexible in terms of their total compensation and benefits packages, and some are even willing to accept a lower salary than their previous position.
By contrast, those who are already employed still expect increments of 10 to 15 per cent before they will consider jumping ship. But the problem here is that employers - even those which have increased their hiring - may not necessarily be able to offer such salaries. And to make things even more difficult for hiring banks to woo exceptional professionals, many rival firms are equally determined to retain their talents.
Enterprises recover from the crisis
October 10th, 2009SHANGHAI: A survey released by 51job Inc Wednesday, a leading provider of integrated human resource services in China, showed that over 70 percent of enterprises which have been affected by the financial crisis have seen a gradual recovery this year. Some have maintained the same revenue they did last year and some have even achieved higher revenue, the survey showed.
Online game, e-commerce, food and commodity industries invested more in employee recruitment and training, said Feng Lijuan, chief HR expert of 51job Inc. A total of 100 enterprises have been chosen the best companies in terms of human resource management.
"The award will be presented to those whose human resources practices have made significant contributions to their corporate development," said Feng.
Through the award selection process, 51job Inc discovered that over these past few months, HR managers had turned a time of crisis into an opportunity to demonstrate the growing value of human resource management, she added.
"Today, human resource management is not only a partner to business strategy and development, but also an effective tool to manage economic slowdowns," Feng said.
The 100 best HR companies cover 19 industries, with IT at the top, manufacturing ranking second and finance third. Most face fierce competition for talent. Among them, foreign-funded companies occupy a majority and there are more State-owned ones than private ones, she said.
"Foreign-funded ventures were largely impacted globally by the economic slowdown, but their business in China has achieved the fastest recovery," Feng said.
The 100 winners have taken some actions to decrease the staff turnover rate by the preference of internal recruitment and rotation, according to Feng.
"What's more," Feng said, "the reinforced performance management they have made enables them to keep a higher salary level for employees."
Salaries of the 100 winners increased by 4.92 percent in the first half of this year over the same period last year. Among them, 52 companies increased salaries by five per cent to 10 per cent.
Job opportunities offered for university graduates
September 29th, 2009A nationwide employment campaign was launched in Shanghai yesterday (Sept 19) to provide university graduates with job opportunities in co-operation with chain stores and franchisers at home and abroad.
The campaign, sponsored by the China Chain Stores and Franchises Association, is the first of its kind in the country, and combines universities with businesses to help graduates solve the difficulty of finding jobs.
"To solve this issue, we need not only concern from the government. It's also a responsibility for chain store businesses," said Pei Liang, secretary general of the association.
Pei said many franchisers have worked out preferential policies to encourage graduates to start their own chain store and franchise business while employing some of them to work in their companies.
The campaign, which will extend to Guangzhou, Xi'an and Beijing, has firm support from the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Education and the Shanghai Municipal Education Committee.
Meanwhile, an exhibition for international chain stores and franchisers opened at the Shanghai International Exhibition Center on Saturday to echo the campaign.
Many branded retailers and franchisers, including Home Inns & Hotels Management Inc and Yum! Brands Inc, introduced their management concepts and preferential policies for graduates starting businesses at the show.
"Human resources are invaluable for an enterprise wishing to lead the industry," said Sun Jian, CEO of Home Inns & Hotels Management Inc, which plans to employ 600 graduates from universities next year.
Sun's plan was echoed by Wang Hongyu, HR Director of Yum! Brands Inc China Division, who said his company has employed 3000 graduates this year and more will be hired next year.
Other firms introduced policies on loans and management subsidies at the campaign-launching ceremony to help solve funds shortage in running chain stores.
China's banking regulator denies regulating bankers' pay
September 27th, 2009BEIJING, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- China's banking regulator told Xinhua Thursday night it does not place limits on the pay of the country's commercial banks' top executives.
The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said it noted that some of the country's media reported the CBRC was drafting a document to regulate the pay of bankers from commercial banks.
Every country was trying to correct the improper incentive mechanism to curb excessive risk-taking which sparked the current financial crisis, said the CBRC.
"The CBRC has been working with other relative departments on improving the wage incentive mechanism for the country's banking industry since last year," an official from the CBRC, who declined to be named, said in response to the media reports.
"The aim was to introduce scientific guidelines on incentive mechanism by integrating executives' pay and operation risks," said the spokesman, adding the CBRC is not directly responsible for regulating bankers' remuneration.
Detailed pay setting should be determined by individual financial institutions, according to the official.
Young foreigners hunt jobs in China amid crisis
September 25th, 2009BEIJING — When the best job Mikala Reasbeck could find after college in Boston was counting pills part-time in a drugstore for $7 an hour, she took the drastic step of jumping on a plane to Beijing in February to look for work.
A week after she started looking, the 23-year-old from Wheeling, West Virginia, had a full-time job teaching English.
"I applied for jobs all over the U.S. There just weren't any," said Reasbeck, who speaks no Chinese but had volunteered at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In China, she said, "the jobs are so easy to find. And there are so many."
Young foreigners like Reasbeck are coming to China to look for work in its unfamiliar but less bleak economy, driven by the worst job markets in decades in the United States, Europe and some Asian countries.
Many do basic work such as teaching English, a service in demand from Chinese businesspeople and students. But a growing number are arriving with skills and experience in computers, finance and other fields.
"China is really the land of opportunity now, compared to their home countries," said Chris Watkins, manager for China and Hong Kong of MRI China Group, a headhunting firm. "This includes college graduates as well as maybe more established businesspeople, entrepreneurs and executives from companies around the world."
Watkins said the number of resumes his company receives from abroad has tripled over the past 18 months.
China's job market has been propped up by Beijing's 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus, which helped to boost growth to 7.9 percent from a year earlier in the quarter that ended June 30, up from 6.1 percent the previous quarter. The government says millions of jobs will be created this year, though as many as 12 million job-seekers still will be unable to find work.
Andrew Carr, a 23-year-old Cornell University graduate, saw China as a safer alternative after classmates' offers of Wall Street jobs were withdrawn due to the economic turmoil.
Passing up opportunities in New York, San Francisco and Boston, Carr started work in August at bangyibang.com, a Web site in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen that lets the public or companies advertise and pay for help in carrying out business research, getting into schools, finding people and other tasks.
"I noticed the turn the economy was taking, and decided it would be best to go directly to China," said Carr, who studied Chinese for eight years.
Most of his classmates stayed in the United States and have taken some unusual jobs — one as a fishing guide in Alaska.
China can be more accessible to job hunters than economies where getting work permits is harder, such as Russia and some European Union countries.
Employers need government permission to hire foreigners, but authorities promise an answer within 15 working days, compared with a wait of months or longer that might be required in some other countries. An employer has to explain why it needs to hire a foreigner instead of a Chinese national, but the government says it gives special consideration to people with technical or management skills.
Rules were tightened ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, apparently to keep out possible protesters. That forced some foreign workers to leave as their visas expired.
Some 217,000 foreigners held work permits at the end of 2008, up from 210,000 a year earlier, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Thousands more use temporary business visas and go abroad regularly to renew them.
Reasbeck said it took her two months to find the drugstore job after she graduated from Boston's Emerson College with a degree in writing, literature and publishing. She said she applied to as many as 50 employers nationwide.
Today, on top of her teaching job, she works part-time recruiting other native English-speaking teachers. She makes 14,000 to 16,000 yuan ($2,000 to $2,300) a month.
"I could have a pretty comfortable life here on not a very high salary. English teachers are in high demand," she said.
Reasbeck said most of her college classmates are in part-time jobs or unemployed.
"People are sleeping on their mom's couches, as far as I know," she said.
While many jobs require at least a smattering of Chinese, some employers that need other skills are hiring people who do not speak the language.
Bangyibang.com's founder and CEO, Grant Yu, has five foreign employees in his 35-member work force. Yu plans to add more and said he might hire applicants who cannot speak Chinese if they have other skills.
"I don't believe language is the biggest obstacle in communication, as long as he or she has a strong learning ability," Yu said.
Feng Li, a partner in a Chinese-Canadian private fund in Beijing that invests in the mining industry, said he needs native speakers of foreign languages to read legal documents and communicate with clients abroad. He plans to recruit up to six foreign employees.
"We don't need Chinese guys who speak English like me," Feng said.
Some foreigners see China not just as a refuge but as a source of opportunities they might not get at home.
"Having one or two years on your resume of China experiences is only going to help you back at headquarters in the United States or if you apply for business schools," said Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group in Shanghai.
A 28-year-old former London banker took a job a year ago with a Chinese private equity firm after the crisis devastated his industry at home. He said that even though he spoke no Chinese, his experience and contacts made him a sought-after asset in China, a market that he said offers "a much faster route to a top-level position."
"I actually earn more out here," said the banker, who asked not to be identified by name at his Chinese employer's request. "And the hours are much shorter."
Konstantin Schamber, a 27-year-old German, passed up possible jobs at home to become business manager for a Beijing law firm, where he is the only foreign employee.
"I believe China is the same place as the United States used to be in the 1930s that attracts a lot of people who'd like to have either money or career opportunities," Schamber said.
Job hunters from other Asian countries also are looking to China.
An Kwang-jin, a 30-year-old South Korean photographer, has worked as a freelancer for a year in the eastern city of Qingdao. He said China offered more opportunities as South Korea struggles with a sluggish economy.
Still, foreigners will face more competition from a rising number of educated, English-speaking young Chinese, some of them returning from the West with work experience, Rein said.
"You have a lot of Chinese from top universities who are making $500-$600 a month," Rein said. "Making a case that you are much better than they are is very hard."
China's seven golden industries in 2010
September 22nd, 2009Zhaopin.com and cn.yahoo.com have sponsored human resource experts to analyze China's job market in 2010 on the basis of trends in China's economic development. Job hunters may wish to use this as a reference.
Position: On-site interpreter
Annual salary: 400,000 yuan
On-site interpreters have been labeled as the most desirable professional in the 21st century. As China adopts more international standards, economic exchanges with the outside world and international activities in China are increasing. This has resulted in an urgent demand for more on-site interpreters.
An on-site interpreter's salary depends on their work hours. Typical pay is 4,000—8,000 yuan per hour. According to information, an increasing number of large foreign enterprises will set up branches in China and Beijing in the next 4 years, and on-site interpreters will enjoy steadily increasing salaries.
Position: logistics engineer
Annual salary: 100,000 yuan at present
According to statistics released by relevant Chinese institutions, demand for logistics personnel is expanding sharply. At present, China faces a shortage of 6 million logistics personnel. Statistics also show that many logistics engineers were previously engaged in other work and very few have received professional training.
At present, only 21 percent of China's logistics professionals have university education. According to information, Shell Group offers between 6,000 and 8,000 yuan per month to fresh graduates the company employs in China.
Reporters learned that the industry will grow significantly in the next year. "At present, the basic annual salary of a logistics professional is 70,000 yuan. As the world's energy resources are shrinking, relevant Chinese professionals may receive higher salaries in four years."
Position: Environmental engineer
Annual salary: 80,000 — 100,000 yuan
Statistics show that there are only 130,000 people specializing in environmental protection in China, including 80,000 technicians. Judging from the number of environmental protection personnel in developed countries, China now needs 420,000 environmental engineers.
According to industry experts, the monthly salary of a park or garden designer, or a landscape gardener is about 7,000—8,000 yuan. With the development of China's real estate industry, the annual income of an environmental engineer will reach between 80,000 and 100,000 yuan next year.
Position: 3G engineer
Annual Salary: from 150,000 — 200,000 yuan
According to statistics released by CCW Research, China has a shortage of more than 500,000 3G professionals.
Due to the serious shortage of 3G personnel, the basic annual salary of a 3G engineer will reach between 150,000 and 200,000 yuan in 4 years.
According to Kong.net, some trends indicate that the annual salary of personnel specializing in wireless value-added services who have 2.5G technology skills is about 100,000 yuan. The salary of these individuals will certainly increase when the actual deployment of 3G technology becomes a reality.
Position: Network media professional
Annual salary: 100,000 — 120,000 yuan
Industry experts revealed that the monthly salary for a website editor currently stands at about 5,000 yuan while the salary for a manager is between 8,000 and 10,000 yuan.
"When the network media industry is able to reap a higher advertising revenue in four years time, the salary of relevant professionals will inevitably rise." This editor is quite confident about this industry.
According to this editor's estimation, the annual income for a network media professional should reach between 100,000 and 120,000 yuan in the future.
Position: Network architect
Annual salary: 100,000 — 200,000 yuan
According to zhaopin.com, the basic annual salary for a network architect who has just graduated from university and has no social experience is 80,000 yuan.
As Chinese consumers demand better network architecture services ranging from network construction to network use, and advice on work flow and resource strategy, network architects will earn more in the future.
Position: Actuary
Annual salary: 120,000 — 150,000 yuan
According to statistics released by relevant Chinese institutions, less than 10 Chinese actuaries have been accredited by the international insurance community.
Hong Kong's unemployment unchanged at 5.4 per cent
September 21st, 2009HONG KONG - Hong Kong's unemployment was unchanged at 5.4 percent between June and August this year, official data showed Thursday, as economic uncertainty meant employers remained cautious about hiring.
The seasonally adjusted rate has remained the same since the April-June period.
The number of jobless increased by around 3,000 to 216,800 in the three months ending August from the May-July period, while the workforce declined by around 6,900 to 3,712,000, according to the Census and Statistics Department.
The near-term outlook will depend a lot on the pace of job creation in the economy relative to that in the labour supply, Matthew Cheung, Secretary for Labour and Welfare, said in a statement.
'As the pace of business growth remains uncertain, employers are generally cautious in hiring new hands at this point in time,' he said.
'Coupled with the relatively slow absorption of newcomers, including fresh graduates and school leavers into the labour market this year, the unemployment rate is expected to remain high in the near term.'
China's SOEs' executives' salaries to be regulated
September 18th, 2009China announced Wednesday a guideline to regulate salaries for executives in the country's 135 centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
The document was jointly issued by six administrative departments of China's central government, including the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, Ministry of Finance, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and National Audit Office (NAO).
The document set guidelines in salary structure and payment, position-related consumption, and supervision and management, in a bid to establish and perfect incentive and restraint mechanisms regulating SOE executives' salaries.
The annual salaries structure for SOE executives is composed of basic salary, pay-for-performance, and incentive earnings in the mid and long term, according to the guideline.
It stipulates pay-for-performance of executives should be based on the enterprises' business performance.
The annual salaries of executives should be in line with those for employees in the previous year, in a bid to narrow disparity between executives' and employees', the guideline said.
Departments, including the NAO and the Ministry of Supervision, will be required to monitor the implementation of the regulations, and to undertake punitive measures in the event of irregularity.
Firms face huge shortage of labor
September 17th, 2009As job opportunities increase for migrant workers, companies are finding it hard to hire more workers they need. In addition, some migrant workers have chosen to stay home to develop new careers.
About 40 companies were on hand at a job fair in Zhuhai. In a complete turnaround from the past, many companies are feeling great pressure to hire enough workers.
Yuan Weiying, Zhuhai Fine Union FPC Co. said "We are short by 100 workers now. It's hard to hire a worker. We sent out a lot of hiring information to some places, but we are still unable to find one. Our current workers can not meet the production requirements."
Some companies began to show signs of an economic rebound with an increase of orders as of July. This triggered a greater demand for labor. A significant shortage of workers emerged in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions. Statistics show that the shortage of workers in Chongqing city has exceeded 30,000.
One employer said "In the past, 20 to 30 people would immediately reply as soon as we posted hiring information. But now, there is no one. We needed to hire 10 to 20 workers this time, but we only hired one person."
Because of the economic rebound, company job postings have jumped by 20 percent from the same period last year. The workers' wages have also gone up by 10 percent.
When the crisis hit last year, a lot of migrant workers from Liaoning province returned home following a reduction to their income. Most of them attended local training. A year later, about 60 percent of migrant workers in the province were re-employed at home, with some even starting their own businesses.
Wang Junjie, Manager of Shenyang Fulanerte Garment Factory said "Our income shrank a lot because of the global financial crisis. So I decided to come back to create my own business. With the help of my friend, I took part in a technician training class. I learned a lot from the class. Later, I found a small-sized processing factory."
Since the crisis erupted, the local government in Liaoning province set up training classes to help workers upgrade their knowledge and skills. So far, about 170,000 workers have accepted training throughout the province.
Zhejiang: Job market picks up
September 15th, 2009Summer used to be a slow season for the job market, but things are different this year. Many companies that froze hiring since the financial crisis are recruiting again. Zhou Xiaoye has a story from Zhejiang Province in east China.
At this provincial job fair, a flooring manufacturer is collecting resumés.
The company chief says it's the first time they're recruiting since the economic downturn began.
Flooring manufacturer Rao Xianping said, "We're an export company, and we've been hit hard by the crisis. However demand is coming back now, so we need to recruit lots of staff, in every subsidiary company."
Besides the increase in export orders, the company is also optimistic about the domestic market.
Rao Xianping said, "The company has invested a lot in the domestic market, so we badly need employees in the sales and production sectors."
Another company says their biggest headache is the lack of staff to handle foreign trade.
Company recruiter Hu Ronghui said, "We'll send employees overseas as long as we recruit. "
This isn't an exceptional case. This job fair used to have more than 20 companies, but this year there are over a hundred.
Wang Changjiang, deputy firector of Zhejiang Laboe Exchange Center, said, "Starting from this May, there's been a surge in job opportunities. Through July, the number of employers increased by 30 percent, while jobs increased by 4 percent.
Jobs in textiles, electronics, machinery have increased the most, while the most wanted vacancies are for sales people and technicians.
New jobs work out for 7.6m, unrest ruled out
September 11th, 2009Job creation momentum has let the nation's minister of human resources and social security to believe that social unrest triggered by unemployment could be a thing of the past.
"I am convinced the current measures taken by the central government will prevent further social unrest from happening," Yin Weimin told China Daily on the sidelines of a press conference at the State Council Information Office.
China has not seen any social unrest so far this year - protests, riots or demonstrations - triggered by unemployment.
The minister said Wednesday that the country created 7.57 million new jobs in 2009, some 84 percent of its annual goal.
And he added that the registered unemployment rate in urban areas stood at 4.3 percent and had been stable for some time.
Experts pointed out, though, that China's urban unemployment rate excludes migrant workers, and said that segment of the Chinese workforce was hardest hit by the global financial crisis.
"Updated statistics have shown the employment situation is generally stable," the minister said.
"The worst-case scenario we prepared for earlier, in which migrant workers who lost their jobs might turn up protesting, did not take place.
"And college graduates are also quite stable, with sufficient employment measures in place," the minister told China Daily.
Government data shows that 95 percent of migrant workers had jobs last month, which was on par with the percentage working last year. And a recent shortage of labor in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta areas, both economic heartlands, underlines the recovery of the economy and the creation of new jobs, the official said.
"This is a significant signal underlining a U-turn in China's economy," said Chen Yu, director of the China Institute for Occupation Research at Peking University.
But Yin pointed out that the overall employment situation remained "severe".
More than 30 percent of China's 6.11 million fresh college graduates were unemployed as of July and China had more than seven million young unemployed people seeking work.
About 30 percent of China's five million recently laid-off workers remained jobless in August.
Yin said the central government would invest more money to ensure additional people find work.
"Though the employment situation is brightening, the authorities should open more channels to let migrant workers know about new jobs in the coming months," said Liu Junsheng, a Beijing-based labor researcher and government advisor.
Experts welcomed the fact that the central government was placing so much emphasis on creating employment.
"Given the current measures, unemployment will be, perhaps, the last reason for social unrest in China," said Chen, from the China Institute for Occupation Research.
Because any widening of the gap in affluence between rural and urban areas could lead to social problems, the authorities have pledged more efforts to close that gap.
Hu Xiaoyi, vice-minister of the human resources ministry, Wednesday said that the government was trying to improve China's social security system. He said a rural pension program and a new cooperative medicare system were among initiatives aimed at narrowing the urban-rural gap.
The pilot rural pension program, launched in August, offers farmers older than 60 in rural areas a monthly endowment. The central government wants to roll the program out to 10 percent of counties this year and make it universal by 2020.
Minister Yin said the central government "stands firm" on its commitment to bridge the income gap between rich and poor and has plans to put a ceiling on the skyrocketing salaries of executives with State-owned enterprises.
The new document will call for executives' pay hikes to be in line with workers' increases, and the relevant union will have a say on bosses' pay, the minister told China Daily.
"The central government is clear that the incomes of the masses must grow, in line with the growing economy," he said.
Last week, the cabinet issued a new set of guidelines urging government-funded hospitals, schools and other agencies nationwide to bring in performance-related pay, instead of persisting with fixed salary increments and bonuses.
Migrant workers harder to find
September 9th, 2009Now is traditionally the low season for recruiting migrant workers in the coastal areas where most exported goods are produced. But this year the peak season has continued and some manufacturers have found it hard to find workers.
In a labor market in Zhuhai, a southern coastal city in China, companies are trying to find the migrant workers they need, but very few can get enough.
One recruiter said "We only needed 50 to 60 workers this time last year. But we have hired 100 people this year, and we still need 200 more. "
According to data from Zhuhai's human resource center, labor demand in the city for July and August increased 100 percent over the same period last year. However, the firms got only 20 percent migrant workers they needed.
Chen Xianfeng, Department Director of Zhuhai Human Resources Center said "All of our space has been used and still more is needed."
In Nanjing, east China, migrant workers are also hard to find. They have started to be more picky about which jobs they take.
One migrant worker said "I want to have a better job with a higher salary and free accommodation."
One migrant worker said "I want a job with less hours and a factory that is easy to get to."
Analysts say the new situation in the labor market is a result of more orders for manufacturers. In addition, some migrant workers find it easier and more comfortable to work locally. They are now able to find jobs in their hometowns with salaries they can accept. And so, some manufacturers are starting to transfer some of their production from coastal areas to inland locations.
Job-hunting graduates prefer State-owned to foreign companies
September 2nd, 2009More Chinese graduates prefer to work for a State-owned company than for a foreign-owned enterprise, according to a new survey.
The findings were based on surveys of 21,000 graduating college students across China by the human resources company www.chinahr.com.
It is the first time in seven years that Chinese companies came out on top.
Foreign companies received a historically low vote of 23 percent, compared with 34.1 percent for State-owned businesses in the poll.
"Advantages such as more stable employment and better employee benefits at State-owned companies proved to be more attractive to college students, especially given the global economic slowdown," said Ouyang Hui, a human resources (HR) research supervisor at www.chinahr.com.
"Foreign companies, joint ventures and private enterprises cut back staff or scaled down recruiting plans last year, while State-owned businesses endeavored to create job opportunities for graduates in accordance with official policy," Ouyang said.
Chen Jiang, a master's degree graduate of Peking University, the most prestigious in China, moved to a State-owned integrated circuit company this summer after originally being hired by a foreign company in the same line of business.
To his surprise, Chen said, a lot of his classmates who worked for well-known foreign companies asked him to keep an eye out for any opportunities for them.
US-based Procter & Gamble and Google are the only two foreign companies in the top 10, according to the poll.
China Mobile ranked first for the second time, while past favorites Microsoft and IBM ranked 11th and 12th, respectively.
Ouyang said the State-owned companies started to attract more recruits in 2007.
According to researchers, students were attracted most by fair human resources policies and opportunities for development and advancement when choosing a job.
Salary and benefits were the top factors in 2008. This year benefits ranked fourth, and salary ranked ninth.
"It is a good phenomenon if the investigations were conducted scientifically," said Mike Wang, HR manager of Morgan Stanley China.
"It means students could have more choices when selecting a job. But to us, it's less relevant," Wang said.
"As a leading foreign company in the field, we always pay attention to college students and try to provide them with the best career path. And we respect individual choices according to their own situations," he said.
To learn more about graduates' needs and preferences during campus recruitment periods, Morgan Stanley conducted its own survey in the first half of 2009 among students at Tsinghua, Peking, Fudan and Shanghai Jiaotong universities.
"We broadened our recruitment outreach based on the results, such as expanding our information channels through campus bulletin boards and other popular online forums posting job-hunting information, so that graduates would have a clear picture of what we can offer them," Wang said.
"To further contribute to the community and also enhance communications between graduates and Morgan Stanley, we have been sponsoring the Morgan Stanley Scholarship Program at leading universities in China since 2006," he added.
Yi Siting, 25, a master's graduate from Renmin University of China, chose Bank of China as her career starting point this spring, but denied the economic situation was her main consideration while job hunting.
"At State companies such as Bank of China, a lot of relaxation activities will be organized, which makes employees feel like part of a family. Large companies give me a sense of belonging and security," she said
Yi's close friend Tang Fang, from Peking University, said she prefers foreign companies to any other kind, saying they had more management expertise and a freer atmosphere.
But Yi disagreed.
"Actually, most State companies such as Bank of China always hire a lot of people from abroad, and it has a very open and modern management style," Yi said.
"Nowadays, the gap between State-owned companies and foreign ones in this respect has become narrower and narrower," she said.
As HR commissioner at a State-owned telecommunication company, Wu Yao was pleased with the poll results.
But he added that he didn't expect State-owned companies to prevail in the long term.
"As the distance between Chinese companies and foreign counterparts narrows, students will choose employers according to their own background, personal working style and interests, regardless of whether it is foreign or State-owned," Wu said.
"All companies have realized the importance of human resources," Wu added.
American Graduates Finding Jobs in China
August 27th, 2009BEIJING — Shanghai and Beijing are becoming new lands of opportunity for recent American college graduates who face unemployment nearing double digits at home.
Even those with limited or no knowledge of Chinese are heeding the call. They are lured by China’s surging economy, the lower cost of living and a chance to bypass some of the dues-paying that is common to first jobs in the United States.
“I’ve seen a surge of young people coming to work in China over the last few years,” said Jack Perkowski, founder of Asimco Technologies, one of the largest automotive parts companies in China.
“When I came over to China in 1994, that was the first wave of Americans coming to China,” he said. “These young people are part of this big second wave.”
One of those in the latest wave is Joshua Arjuna Stephens, who graduated from Wesleyan University in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in American studies. Two years ago, he decided to take a temporary summer position in Shanghai with China Prep, an educational travel company.
“I didn’t know anything about China,” said Mr. Stephens, who worked on market research and program development. “People thought I was nuts to go not speaking the language, but I wanted to do something off the beaten track.”
Two years later, after stints in the nonprofit sector and at a large public relations firm in Beijing, he is highly proficient in Mandarin and works as a manager for XPD Media, a social media company based in Beijing that makes online games.
Jonathan Woetzel, a partner with McKinsey & Company in Shanghai who has lived in China since the mid-1980s, says that compared with just a few years ago, he was seeing more young Americans arriving in China to be part of an entrepreneurial boom. “There’s a lot of experimentation going on in China right now, particularly in the energy sphere, and when people are young they are willing to come and try something new,” he said.
And the Chinese economy is more hospitable for both entrepreneurs and job seekers, with a gross domestic product that rose 7.9 percent in the most recent quarter compared with the period a year earlier. Unemployment in urban areas is 4.3 percent, according to government data.
Grace Hsieh, president of the Yale Club in Beijing and a 2007 graduate, says she has seen a rise in the number of Yale graduates who have come to work in Beijing since she arrived in China two years ago. She is working as an account executive in Beijing for Hill & Knowlton, the public relations company.
Sarabeth Berman, a 2006 graduate of Barnard College with a major in urban studies, initially arrived in Beijing at the age of 23 to take a job that would have been difficult for a person her age to land in the United States: program director at BeijingDance/LDTX, the first modern dance company in China to be founded independently of the government.
Ms. Berman said she was hired for her familiarity with Western modern dance rather than a knowledge of China. “Despite my lack of language skills and the fact that I had no experience working in China, I was given the opportunity to manage the touring, international projects, and produce and program our annual Beijing Dance Festival.”
After two years of living and working in China, Ms. Berman is proficient in Mandarin. She travels throughout China, Europe and the United States with the dance company.
Willy Tsao, the artistic director of BeijingDance/LDTX, said he had hired Ms. Berman because of her ability to make connections beyond China. “I needed someone who was capable of communicating with the Western world.”
Another dynamic in the hiring process, Mr. Tsao says, is that Westerners can often bring skills that are harder to find among the Chinese.
“Sarabeth is always taking initiative and thinking what we can do,” he said, “while I think the more standard Chinese approach is to take orders.” He says the difference is rooted in the educational system. “In Chinese schools students are encouraged to be quiet and less outspoken; it fosters a culture of listening more than initiating.”
Mr. Perkowski, who spent almost 20 years on Wall Street before heading to China, says many Chinese companies are looking to hire native English speakers to help them navigate the American market.
“I’m working with a company right now that wants me to help them find young American professionals who can be their liaisons to the U.S.,” he said. “They want people who understand the social and cultural nuances of the West.”
Skip to next paragraph Mr. Perkowski’s latest venture, JFP Holdings, a merchant bank based in Beijing, has not posted any job openings, but has received more than 60 résumés; a third are from young people in the United States who want to come work in China, he said.
Mick Zomnir, 20, a soon-to-be junior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is working as a summer intern for JFP. “As things have gotten more difficult in the U.S., I started to think about opportunities elsewhere,” he said. He does not speak Chinese but says he will begin studying Mandarin when he returns to M.I.T. in the fall.
A big draw of working in China, many young people say, is that they feel it allows them to skip a rung or two on the career ladder.
Ms. Berman said: “There is no doubt that China is an awesome place to jump-start your career. Back in the U.S., I would be intern No. 3 at some company or selling tickets at Lincoln Center.”
For others, like Jason Misium, 23, China has solved the cash flow problem of starting a business. After graduating with a degree in biology from Harvard in 2008, Mr. Misium came to China to study the language. Then, with a friend, Matthew Young, he started Sophos Academic Group, an academic consulting firm that works with Chinese students who want to study in the United States.
“It’s China’s fault that I’m still here,” he said. “It’s just so cheap to start a business.” It cost him the equivalent of $12,000, which he had in savings, he said.
Among many young Americans, the China exit strategy is a common topic of conversation. Mr. Stephens, Ms. Berman and Mr. Misium all said they were planning to return to the United States eventually.
Mr. Woetzel of McKinsey said work experience in China was not an automatic ticket to a great job back home. He said it was not a marker in the same way an Ivy League education: “The mere fact of just showing up and working in China and speaking Chinese is not enough.”
That said, Mr. Woetzel added, someone who has been able to make a mark in China is a valuable hire.
“At McKinsey, we are looking for people who have demonstrated leadership,” he said, “and working in a context like China builds character, requires you to be a lot more entrepreneurial and forces you to innovate.”
HK jobless rate reaches 5.4%
August 26th, 2009Hong Kong has reported a 5.4 percent unemployment rate between May and July, up from 3.3% in April to June.
Although it's a jump, authorities say it's better than expected, and the labor market is stable. The 5.4 percent rate means the city has 10 thousand more jobless in the three months, taking the total above 210 thousand.
Local government says the figure is better than expected. Most job losses during the period have been in decorating, finance and the entertainment sector. The unemployment rate in the construction industry is the most severe, at 11.1 percent, but it's lower than the previous month.
Unemployment in the finance sector has also fallen a little to 2.4 percent. Authorities said companies have made great efforts to provide more job opportunities in the past few months.
China can achieve 2009 employment targets
August 24th, 2009At present, China's employment situation remains stable and some positive changes have emerged. Human Resources and Social Security Minister Yin Weimin said that he is confident that all the current annual employment targets will be achieved.
In the first seven months of 2009, China created 6.66 million new urban jobs, 970,000 of which were created in July. In this period, 3.15 million laid-off workers were re-employed and 930,000 people facing employment difficulties found jobs, which is overall better than expected.
At the beginning of 2009, China set employment targets requiring that 9 million new urban jobs be created over the year and registered unemployment rate be controlled below 4.6 percent. In the first seven months, the number of newly-created jobs has already accounted for 74 percent of the target, and the registered unemployment rate stood at 4.3 percent as of the end of second quarter, curbing the upward momentum which has existed since the end of last year. The number of monthly newly-created jobs in cities and towns has basically stabilized since the second quarter.
The monthly increment of about one million employment opportunities is essentially maintaining the same level as that recorded before the outbreak of the international financial crisis. This indicates that China's employment has gradually bottomed out.
Yin said that in order to achieve the annual employment target, in addition to continuing to boost employment by closely integrating the expansion of domestic demand with economic development, implementing more active employment policies and strengthening training will also improve employability. Priority should also be given to promoting the tertiary industry and small and medium-sized enterprises to stimulate employment.
However, according to overall analysis, the current conflict between labor force oversupply and shrinking demand is still acute. According to the latest estimates from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS), there will be over 24 million people in need of employment in 2009. "If calculated on the basis of an eight percent economic growth rate, only about 12 million new jobs can be provided after a whole year's economic growth. The gap between supply and demand will further widen compared to that of 2008," said an MHRSS official.
Fiscal talent, IT wizardry high on agenda
August 21st, 2009Howard Yan graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science in England in 2005 and set up a company selling electronic navigation systems in the United Kingdom and other countries. Pinched by poor profits when the global financial crisis hit, he returned to Shanghai last year.
Yan now works for Shanghai Information Investment Inc, a state-owned enterprise focused on strategic investment in the city's information technology infrastructure.
"I can contribute my knowledge in computer science," he said. "Moreover, the city's financial sector will become even more important after the crisis."
Yan is one of many who see opportunities unfolding after the State Council gave Shanghai the green light to transform itself into a major international financial center and shipping hub by 2020.
Financial services, one of the most important sectors in the government's grand plan, is expected to need a lot of the kind of talent Yan can offer.
The financial sector in Shanghai has a total employment of about 230,000 by the end of 2008, about 2 percent out of the total 10.53 million employees in the city, according to an annual report by Shanghai Statistic Bureau.
New York, in contrast, has a total number of 464,400 in the financial sector, 14.5 percent that of its total employment by the end of 2008, according to the New York State Department of Labor.
The quality and quantity of Shanghai's financial talent will have a direct influence on the pace of progress in achieving the city's ambitions, according to the Blueprint for Shanghai's Development as a Financial Center, a report by three financial professors at Shanghai Finance University.
"Shanghai should have at least 1 million employees in the financial sector and related industries," said the report. "We're facing increasing pressure as our business in China is expanding very rapidly," said Huang Qiumei, director for human resources at Standard Chartered (China).
"Our staff on China's mainland will exceed 4,000 very soon, compared with an initial 1,200 employees," she said.
"It's hard to say in which sector in Shanghai is most short of financial experience," said Zhou Lin, deputy dean and professor at the new Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance in Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
The institute was founded in April with a six-year grant of 320 million yuan (US$46.8 million) from the city government.
"Setting up a structured method to allow enterprises and employees to develop at the same time may prove efficient for Shanghai to expand its talent pool," Glynn Lowth, president of Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, told a media briefing in Shanghai in April.
"There is still not enough financial talent familiar with international financial operations, and the problem lies in the shortage of qualified college faculties," Zhou said.
Most professors in domestic universities focus on macroeconomics and currency policies; few of them have experience in capital markets and corporate operations.
Balanced approach
"We have designed courses to better suit the current economic situation, and with professors having rich experience in practical applications, we hope we can educate our students with international vision," he added.
The college is expecting to graduate 500 students with master's degrees in finance every year in eight or 10 years' time.
"Shanghai must speed up the nurturing of financial professionals as well as attracting more Chinese and overseas experts to the city," said Fang Xinghai, director of the Shanghai government's Financial Services Office.
"It is not practical to fully rely on recruiting financial talent from overseas because our financial markets are not yet fully developed," Zhou said.
Standard Chartered is adopting a balanced approach.
"We want local talent as well as overseas staff to help our development," Huang said. Right now there are more than 300 staff from the overseas branches of Standard Chartered working in Shanghai.
China's capital markets still lag their Western counterparts, and highly qualified staff are considered key to closing the gap.
"Fostering financial talent and developing financial markets are both important and can be done at the same time," said Zhou.
For his part, Yan has enrolled in a postgraduate MBA course at Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance and will start his studies in September.
"I hope I can secure a better job - and also contribute to the city's financial services sector in the future," he said.
Samsung Securities is hiring 50
August 19th, 2009Samsung Securities Co. is hiring 50 people in Hong Kong by the end of this year. According to Bloomberg, the South Korean firm is just launching an office in Hong Kong to expand its services for capital raising, acquisitions, stock trading and capital management.
Samsung Securities is also expanding to begin operations in China, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and India through internal growth, partnerships and M&A. In fact it may consider a joint venture in China in order to begin operations there in two or three years, according to the report.
R&D hiring in China flat: Microsoft
August 17th, 2009RECRUITMENT at Microsoft's largest research centre outside the US will be flat next year, a senior company executive said.
Microsoft China employs around 3500 research and development staff -- more than a five-fold growth since 2005.
The work done at the China research lab is for global consumption; some of its more recent efforts can be found in Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 7.
According to Ya-Qin Zhang, Microsoft corporate vice-president and chairman of its Beijing-based R&D group, staffing levels are adequate at the moment.
"In 2005 we had about 600 people in R&D in China. Now we're at 3500 researchers and engineers but next year hiring will be flat," Dr Zhang said.
The Beijing R&D group is divided into three streams -- the product group works on existing products, incubation looks at next-generation products, and research has an eye on future products.
"The product team has the highest number of staff at around 80 per cent, while product and incubation have 10 per cent each."
Dr Zhang's research staff were responsible for a few features in Windows 7, including systems recovery and diagnosis, speech technology and multi-touch.
Microsoft US has the largest research and development group within the company, employing around 30,000 people.
Dr Zhang singled out smart devices, cloud computing, natural language, search and graphics as focus areas for the R&D group.
"We're looking at how we can extend the capabilities of a computer and put in more intelligence in devices," he said. "Smart sensors would be one area that we will see a lot of work in.
"But I personally like to keep it simple ... technology should be simple, not complex," he said, citing that as the reason why he doesn't use a touchpad smart phone.
He dismissed backers of an all-or-nothing approach to cloud computing, saying most critics tend to forget the client's role in the equation.
"I'm against talk that everything sits in the cloud and the client isn't important. The two work hand in hand -- cloud and client. How information is accessed is very important."
Microsoft is pushing its Software-plus-Services vision for both public and private clouds.
The software giant increased its global R&D budget by $US1 billion to $US9bn this year, chief operating officer Kevin Turner said during a visit to Sydney in April.
Dr Zhang was in Sydney to officially open the National ICT Australia's Techfest09 event yesterday; he has rejoined Nicta's International Advisory Group after a brief hiatus.
Dr Zhang commended Nicta for the high standard of research being conducted and said both organisations shared the same vision.
"I'm excited to see that Nicta and Microsoft share the same model of taking risks," he said.
At Techfest09, Nicta unveiled a new software component dubbed sel4 that ensures an operating system will "never" crash has been developed in Australia. It has the potential to earn billions of dollars in royalties.
China to release document regulating SOE executive salaries
August 13th, 2009A Chinese official says the government is writing up a document to more effectively regulate State-owned enterprises (SOEs) as well as executives' salaries.
Hu Xiaoyi, Vice Minister of Human Resources and Social Security said the document would be released in the near future during an Aug. 4 press conference held by the State Council Information Office.
Hu said two steps would be taken to regulate SOE executives' salaries. The government will firstly regulate the salaries of SOE executives in central enterprises and then instruct local governments on setting the salaries of those executives running local companies.?
"Five principles are used to formulate this document," Hu explained. "We should combine market regulation with government supervision; strike a balance between short-term and long-term financial incentives for their achievements; improve salary regulations; provide insurance for employees; and coordinate salary increases for executives of SOEs and for employees."
Jobs increase in second quarter
August 11th, 2009China saw a slight increase in jobs in the second quarter while its urban unemployment rate stayed at 4.3 percent, bucking a global shrinking job market, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said Friday.
From February to June, the number of jobs grew by 0.13 percent over the previous quarter (October 08 - January 09), according to a ministry survey of more than 513 major companies in five provinces.
"It is a very slight but very positive change," ministry spokesman Yin Chengji said.
The number of jobs fell by 8.05 percent between October and January, but the government's stimulus package helped stem urban unemployment after two consecutive increases since the fourth quarter last year, he said.
Due to the global economic slowdown, the jobless rate rose to 4.2 percent in the fourth quarter last year - the first increase in five years, before hitting 4.3 percent in the first quarter of this year.
The ministry aims to keep the unemployment rate below 4.6 percent this year, which would still make it the highest level of unemployment since 1980.
The jobless rate does not include the country's 230 million migrant workers, who make up the main workforce in the labor-intensive industries of the coastal regions.
Officials from the National Bureau of Statistics had earlier said that more rural migrant workers found jobs in cities in the second quarter, up by nearly 4 million from the first quarter.
"The employment situation has been stabilizing after the rebound in the first quarter," Yin said. "It is better than expected."
The ministry has achieved more than half of its goals in the past six months, creating jobs for 5.69 million new urban workers, 2.71 million laid-off workers, and 790,000 people who were facing difficulties finding work, officials said.
This year, the ministry aims to create jobs for 9 million new urban workers, 5 million laid-off workers and 1 million others encountering difficulty finding work.
6 talents succeed at AVIC's global recruitment drive
August 7th, 2009Six talents were selected to be vice-presidents of five subsidiaries under Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) on August 5. This marks the successful conclusion of AVIC's global recruitment drive to find top executives.
It is the first time for Chinese security enterprises to seek high level executives worldwide. All of the jobs were open to foreigners and the search was not limited to China-born managers. The recruitment drive was launched on Feb. 26, 2009 and around one thousand applicants from over twenty countries and regions had signed up.
According to the company, most of the six executives had worked for large scale state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and governments before. As all of the jobs will involve dealing with some of the corporation's restricted information, background checks will be performed on them. They are also asked to sign confidentiality agreements.
AVIC is the first Chinese aerospace manufacturer and security company listed in the Fortune Global 500, ranking 426 in this year's list released on July 8.
AVIC is the originator of AVIC Commercial Aircraft Engine Company, which will engage in research, design, production, sales, maintenance, service and technological consulting for jet engines and related products. AVIC holds a 40 percent stake in this new company.
Job market recovering well in cities
August 5th, 2009Jobs are once again becoming available in China's major cities, and migrant workers are returning in droves after last year's exodus brought on by the global financial crisis.
The Pearl Delta, which has traditionally depended on migrant workers, was badly hit by the global financial crisis last year. Many enterprises eliminated jobs, and migrant workers were forced to return to their home provinces. But now, the employment picture has greatly improved, and workers are returning.
Gui Linchan, Manager of Great Wall Computer, Shenzhen said "We hired more workers recently compared to last year. Since February, we hired six to seven hundred."
In the first half of the year, urban employment stopped falling and began to rise, while 95 percent of the migrant workers who returned home are now coming back to the cities and planning to find work.
Yin Chengji, Spokesman of Ministry of Human Resources & Social Security said "In the fourth quarter of last year, China's urban employment fell sharply. But it soon recovered in the first quarter of this year, and stabilized in the second quarter. We think that the general employment situation is better than expected."
The increase of jobs is directly linked to the four trillion yuan stimulus package that the government launched at the end of 2008. It is also attributable to preferential policies, including promotions for home appliances purchases in rural areas and an increase in tax rebates.
The job market just got harder
August 3rd, 2009Those few employers that are adding staff are sifting through more résumés than ever.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employers on average, are evaluating 5.4 candidates for each of their openings. The calculation is based on April 2009 figures.
To show how quickly the picture has changed, consider that employers were seeing only 1.7 candidates per opening in December of 2007.
The April figure was a hefty jump from March, when employers were seeing 4.8 candidates per opening.
Asia executive hiring better but still slow -Hudson
July 28th, 2009By Susan Fenton
HONG KONG, July 9 (Reuters) - Job prospects for executives in Asia have improved in the past three months as employers expect business to pick up later in the year, though they are still cautious about adding headcount, a quarterly survey showed on Thursday.
Hiring expectations in Singapore rose in the past three months for the first time since early 2007 and in Hong Kong increased for the first time since early last year.
Still, only 26 percent of Singapore employers plan to take on staff in the next three months, up from 20 percent last quarter, and in Hong Kong just 22 percent expect to be recruiting, up from 14 percent.
In China, only 27 percent of respondents said they would be hiring, down slightly from 30 percent in the previous quarter. However, recent economic data suggest the world's third-biggest economy is accelerating and 34 percent of companies in the manufacturing and industrial sector aim to take on staff this quarter, up from 21 percent last quarter.
The survey previously covered Japan but Hudson, part of Chicago-based Chicago-based Hudson Highland Group ( HHGP - news - people ) Inc, said it closed its Japan operation in April and would no longer include the country in its quarterly surveys.
Shenzhen lowers job pay scales
July 24th, 2009The government in Shenzhen has lowered the income benchmarks for the first time since 1999 to soften the impact of the financial crisis on local companies.
The municipal labor authority issues the income benchmarks annually to serve as a reference for 566 types of jobs in the city.
The highest-level and medium-level benchmarks stand at 23,700 yuan ($3,470) and 2,460 yuan per month, respectively, decreasing by 8.5 percent and 3.9 percent each from last year.
However, the low-level income benchmark gained a 7 percent year-on-year rise this year to 1,102 yuan per month, which labor officials said should be attributed to the government's measures to protect low-income laborers.
"Our payment adjustment policy is to control the high-income group, expand the medium-income group and protect the low-income group. It's a way to narrow down the income gaps," said Wu Liyong, director of the income division of Shenzhen Labor and Social Securities Department.
Workers are encouraged to use the benchmark when negotiating their wage with employers.
Last year, the official surveys showed that the lowest-level salaries on average were 25 times less than the highest salaries. This year, surveys showed that gap has narrowed to 21.5.
The authority also recorded the biggest income gap in the financial industry, including security houses, insurance companies and banks, where the highest-paid person could be earning 80 times what the lowest-paid person earns.
Several residents polled by China Daily yesterday in different industries expressed their concerns about salaries shrinking this year.
"Possible pay raise this year? Are you kidding? I would feel relief if no pay cut occurs," said Lin Zhen, an accountant working for a leading computer manufacturer.
Liu Yue, a manager at a State-owned bank, said some of her benefits have been greatly cut since early this year, including money for travel and major public holidays.
"Our salaries have been increased over the past few years given the relatively low level in the industry, but I still feel the total wage was reduced this year. I learned that the salary cut was even bigger in banks that have offered top payment in the industry," Liu told China Daily.
Piao Ye, a human resources manager at a beauty salon, said the income for the entry-level workers has not been increased as much as the government indicates.
"The company provides dormitories to them and they could get 1,000 to 1,500 yuan a month, which could just maintain a very simple life in the city with high consumption index," she said.
Officials at the labor authority said they are not making plans to further increase the minimum level this year.
China's job situation improves
July 20th, 2009Employment in China's southeastern regions is rising steadily. Due to the increasing orders, many enterprises are even suffering a shortage of workers.
Employment in China's southeastern regions is rising steadily. Due
to the increasing orders, many enterprises are even suffering a
shortage of workers.
Figures show the jobless rate in China's Pearl River Delta region has eased since May. Employee demand for Guangzhou and Dongguan increased 15 percent in May, and 10 percent in June. Shenzhen had its first employee shortage in April, and some job seekers have received more than two company offers.
Cai Huanxing, Inspector of Shenzhen Labor & Social Sec. Bureau said "Most of the job offers come from the machinery and manufacturing sectors. Based on our estimates, Shenzhen is short of 100,000 workers right now."
Although the demand for employees is rising, many job seekers are still holding a "wait and see? attitude. About 600,000 migrant workers have left China's industrial heartland, as the world economic crisis hits the region. That's why companies in the Pearl River Delta region are suffering recruitment difficulties.
Human Resourves Rep. of Shenzhen Company said "We need 300 workers. But we have actually only 3 people. Obviously that number is way below our target."
Beijing Subway says it needs 20,000 more workers
July 15th, 2009Beijing Subway announced Monday it would more than double its workforce with an extra 20,000 staff as its operations expand to 561 kilometers by 2015.
The city had eight subway lines, totaling 200 km and hauling 4 million passengers daily, already in service, said the company in a statement on its website.
Beijing Subway has 16,000 people on its payroll, 10 percent of whom have worked on the subway for less than a year.
The company said the municipal government had been increasing investment in building training establishments and teaching skills to deal with the labor shortage.
68% of college graduates land jobs
July 13th, 2009China is under pressure to find jobs for 6.1 million college students graduating this summer. Efforts from various governments and colleges have had limited success. The Ministry of Education says by July the 1st, 4.15 million, or 68 percent of new graduates have landed job.
China is under pressure to find jobs for 6.1 million college students
graduating this summer.
The number of college students graduating this year increased by 440-thousand, from 5.7 million last year. So far, the employment rate is about the same compared to that of a year ago.
To cope with the pressure of finding jobs for fresh graduates, China has adopted polices to increase employment opportunities.
The Ministry of Education launched a teacher recruitment plan in rural areas, which absorbed 200- thousand graduates. 120-thousand graduates have put their name on the lists to become a soldier in the army, and another 200-thousand graduates have signed contracts with outsourcing enterprises under the program launched by the commerce and education ministries. Meanwhile, 120-thousand graduates will go to rural areas or less-developed western regions to start their career.
Zhang Haoming, Deputy Director of Department of University Students' Affairs of Ministry of Education said "College graduates who haven't landed jobs can contact local human resources and social security departments. They can have training, guidance and internships offered by them to find a job as soon as possible."
The Ministry of Education is vowing to coordinate efforts with other departments concerned to find jobs for 70 percent of graduates by September the 1st.
Chinese firms start new hires amid economic recovery
July 10th, 2009Chinese employment service providers said domestic firms have started a fresh round of hiring, especially for management level position, as part of the efforts to cash in on the economic recovery, but most of these firms are still finding it hard to get the right candidates.
Three industries -- real estate, hi-tech and retailing -- are at the forefront of the current round of hiring, according to Wednesday's China Daily.
Wang Shangfeng, general manager of Gold Elite, a major Chinese job hunter, was quoted as saying the past few months have been the worst ever for the company. Demand (from clients) for new labor shrank sharply since the financial crisis broke out. Some private companies were watching while others, especially international companies, stopped hiring.
The company's business has improved since early June. Like GoldElite, DoWelljoin Hunter, another employment service provider, also sees clients back for new hires last month. Its business has grown by 40 percent last month compared with the previous months. The growth rate was even higher than a year earlier.
However, companies in China are still finding it difficult to get the right candidates for the wanted positions, said a survey by Manpower.
According to the survey, 15 percent of the employers are struggling to fill up positions. The top three jobs that they are having difficulties to fill up this year are technicians, management or executives and sales representatives.
Baker & McKenzie Plans to Cut 11% of Lawyers in China
July 8th, 2009Baker & McKenzie LLP, the world’s second-largest law firm by revenue, plans to eliminate 11 percent of its lawyers and professional staff in China because of the “very challenging” economic climate.
“These difficult measures are necessary to ensure our ongoing financial health in an increasingly competitive environment,” the Chicago-based firm said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. A comparable number of secretarial and support staff will be leaving, according to the statement.
Baker didn’t say which practices were affected. The firm has more than 350 lawyers and professional staff in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, according to a separate statement yesterday on the appointment of five partners in the three cities.
International firms including New York-based Proskauer Rose LLP and London-based Ashurst LLP have opened Hong Kong offices in the past 12 months, drawn by a boom in initial share sales by Chinese companies in the city which raised $40 billion a year in 2006 and 2007.
While new share sales collapsed to $7.9 billion last year, bankers and analysts predict a revival this year, with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. saying as many as 100 companies may be reviving sales plans postponed during the 2008 equities rout. The accounting firm Ernst & Young LLP has said as much as $39 billion may be raised in Hong Kong and China in 2009.
DLA Piper Cuts
Firms including Chicago-based DLA Piper LLP cut lawyers and staff in Asia in the first half of this year and most of the region’s legal job cuts were thought to be over, according to Jacqueline Keddie, a Singapore-based managing consultant at legal recruitment firm Law Alliance.
“The market isn’t so robust that anyone can guarantee there will be no further retrenchments,” she said.
The dismissals at Baker are at least the firm’s third round of job cuts globally this year.
“The current economic climate is proving very challenging for most businesses, including many of our clients,” Baker said in its statement. “It is difficult to predict the timing and pace of the recovery of the markets in which we operate in Asia.”
Baker & McKenzie said in its statement that its new partners in China are: Joseph Deng, Barbara Li, Eugene Lim, Scott Palmer and Jennifer Van Dale. The firm said in it now has 72 partners at its offices in China and Vietnam.
More effort to boost employment
July 2nd, 2009The Chinese government is sparing no efforts to help college graduates find jobs. Local related departments have been urged to launch campaigns in the next three months to boost employment.
Education departments and universities are required to help graduates whose files are still in the school, to find jobs as soon as possible. Unemployed graduates whose files have been transferred to their hometowns can contact local human resources authorities for internship opportunities. Companies that employ interns and local governments should offer living subsidies to the graduates.
Yu Faming, official of Ministry of Human Resources & Social Security, said, "We will publish a list of internship bases, universities could choose one to cooperate with and send their students there."
Employment campaigns have already been launched in some places. In Sichuan Province, local authorities have organized a job fair for graduates who want to start a business and graduates from low income families.
Summer online job week to kick off
June 25th, 2009China will launch a nationwide week-long online job fair starting Saturday. Information will be collected and posted on several websites. They include the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the National College Grad Employment Service Platform, and the China Labor Market.
Fewer than half of this year's college graduates have found jobs, due to the global downturn.
The target employment rate for graduates is 80 percent by the end of August.
China to stabilize employment
June 24th, 2009China's newly employed workers dropped again in April after rebounding in the first quarter. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security has promised to use the unemployment insurance fund to stabilize the situation.
New employment in urban areas in April dropped more than 10 percent in eastern regions. In Shanghai, the decline reached 45 percent, in Fujian province, 23 percent.
The registered urban unemployment rate hit just over 4 percent, the highest in four years. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security says it will use 30 to 40 billion yuan in the unemployment insurance fund to stabilize employment.
Zuo Chunwen, dept. director of Ministry of HR& Social Security, "we will move forward our frontier of unemployment insurance. It used to be given to people who lost their jobs. We will now use it to keep workers employed."
China's unemployment insurance fund reached 131 billion yuan at the end of last year. The system covered 124 million people. The Ministry says it will use the fund to encourage enterprises to retain positions through training, adjusted working hours, and negotiating salaries.
The Ministry says local governments should launch policies to both increase and stabilize jobs. The focus should be on graduates, search services and essential training.
Employment in Shenzhen to recover
June 23rd, 2009The employment situation across China has begun to show signs of recovery thanks to stimulus policies initiated by the central government. Especially those policies aimed at ensuring growth and employment.
New figures show the major economic index in Shenzhen is continuing to climb. They also show that native brand enterprises such as Huawei and Zhongxin Communication have maintained over 20 percent growth between January and April. And the increase in orders has directly stimulated employment demand. The Shenzhen Labor department reported that the job supply and demand ratio in January was 0.74. But in May, that ratio expanded to just over 1.08, slightly easing the situation.
Lai Yuewen, Employment Dept. Shenzhen Labor & Social Security, says, "we believe the warming-up of the human resources market in April and May shows that our economy in the city is getting rid of the stress, gradually brought upon by the global financial crisis."
MySpace to cut staff by about 30%
June 22nd, 2009Social networking Web site MySpace will cut its staff by about 30 percent so as "to return to an environment of innovation," company executives confirmed on Tuesday.
The job cuts will affect about 425 employees across all its U.S. divisions, the company said.
The company took the move after it had been steadily losing ground to rival Facebook, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta said.
"Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company," said Van Natta.
"I understand that these changes are painful for many," he said." They are also necessary for the long-term health and culture of MySpace. Our intent is to return to an environment of innovation that is centered on our user and our product."
MySpace's corporate offices are based in Beverly Hills near downtown Los Angeles.
Jonathan Miller, an executive with parent company News Corp., said MySpace "grew too big considering the realities of today's marketplace."
"I believe this restructuring will help MySpace operate much more effectively both structurally and financially moving forward," he said. "I am confident in MySpace's next phase under the leadership of Owen and his team."
The job cuts will leave MySpace with about 1,000 domestic employees.
Graduates Sharply Lower Salary Expectations
June 19th, 2009College graduates in China have sharply lowered their salary expectations to something between 2,000 to 3,000 yuan per month for their first jobs after graduation, according to a latest survey on the current employment situation, Beijing Evening News reported on June 17.
This salary expectation drop was almost half from the previous 4,000 to 5,000 yuan per-month salaries college graduates ever foresaw last year.
The survey, conducted by Zhilian Recruiting, a major man-hunting company in China, questioned 15,000 students graduating from college in 2009.
According to the survey, some 45 percent of undergraduates expect salaries of 2,000 to 3,000 yuan a month, but 26 percent of postgraduates think that rate acceptable. Meanwhile, more postgraduates, 34 percent, are eyeing 3,000 to 4,000 yuan per-month salaries, though. PhD graduates of course expect more, with 44 percent counting on at least 5,000 yuan per month.
Xiao Fang, a postgraduate from a prestigious university said she was experiencing a tough time in the job market and had to bring down her monthly salary expectations. After being told her 5,000 yuan baseline was impossible, she reduced her expectations to something about 4,500 yuan.
About 6.11 million students are expected to flux into the job market this year, and one million left from last year are still looking for jobs. To make the situation worse, more jobs are being axed due to the lingering economic slowdown. In general, students' chances of getting employed have been hard hit by the global slump.
Experts say graduates are more pragmatic when they seek jobs at the moement. They suggest graduates integrate their job expectations with the recent national stimulus packages. Rather than setting their hearts on prestigious firms in big cities, they should consider other options, like working in rural villages.
SOE employment open for Taiwan students
June 18th, 2009For the first time that Taiwan students graduating from mainland universities are being allowed to work in state-owned enterprises.
The Fujian provincial government has issued a notice saying these students may apply for positions in state-owned enterprises. They will enjoy same salaries and benefits as mainland students.
So far, more than 1,000 universities on the mainland have accepted 30 thousand Taiwan students. Ten thousand remain in class. Most of them are in Fujian, Guangdong, Beijing and Shanghai.
Job market predicted to touch new low
June 17th, 2009EMPLOYMENT on China's mainland for the third quarter will cool to a five-quarter low due to the impact of the global economic downturn, according to a quarterly survey released by Manpower Inc yesterday.
But expectations are falling more slowly than the previous quarter, thanks to the government's fiscal stimulus package, said the report, based on interviews with 4,026 employers on the mainland.
Companies in the steel, automobile, finance and transport industries were likely to hire more employees in the coming months, in response to industry adjustments and revitalization plans issued by the State Council, the report said.
"There were some optimistic signs. But whether confidence in the whole labor market can be lifted depends on how the economy changes in the second half of this year," said Wu Ruoxuan, Manpower Greater China's managing director.
Eleven percent of HR respondents surveyed in 13 cities said they will expand head counts, while 9 percent said they would cut staff.
The report claimed 66 percent of employers said they would maintain current staffing plans - 10 percent higher than the previous quarter.
"The fact that more companies expect to keep current staff levels rather than cut them shows market confidence is becoming more stable," said Zhu Yijuan, from Manpower.
Hiring in the service industry was the most robust. Finance and insurance, mining and construction and the transport industries also showed stronger hiring prospects compared to the previous quarter, but all had declined from the same period last year, the report said.
Pharma health means more jobs
June 16th, 2009Pharmaceutical company Lilly China will double its staff to 2,000 this year even as experts debate whether the economy has bottomed out.
"A large portion of the hires are in sales and distribution as we expect to do a better job reaching patients in central and western areas of China," David Ricks, Lilly China president, told China Business Weekly late last month.
But he added Lilly China is growing in all aspects, so new employees will be needed in virtually every function from manufacturing and R&D to accounting and operations.
Lilly China is not the only pharmaceutical firm expanding recruitment in China even as global workforce numbers are stagnant or even dropping.
Swiss drug maker Novartis Pharmaceuticals expects to increase its 2,700 employees in China by 20 percent each year until at least 2013. The bulk of the new positions will be in sales, according to CEO Joseph Jimenez.
Amy Huang, vice-president and China director of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), said the company does not intend to cut its budget for China this year - instead it will invest more in developing new medicines and vaccines, including funds for expansion of human resources related to R&D. The UK-headquartered company announced in February it will cut 6,000 jobs this year globally.
The world's second-largest generic medicine company Sandoz said it will recruit more people in China, not only in sales and manufacturing, but also managerial talent.
"The reason for the workforce enhancement in China is rapid expansion of these drug companies here," said Peng Haizhu, pharmaceutical analyst of Huatai Securities.
Year-on-year sales of Lilly China grew around 30 percent in 2008, while its global business rose 9 percent. GSK achieved a 12 percent growth in sales in emerging markets.
China outperformed other emerging markets with a 22 percent increase in sales as global numbers fell by 3 percent. Sales by Novartis Pharmaceuticals in China jumped 29 percent year-on-year to 3.3 billion yuan in 2008, compared with its 6 percent global growth and the company is expecting a 30 percent rise in China this year. AstraZeneca's figures were 25 percent and 7 percent in China and the world respectively.
Best performers
"In any global company, different regional operations are competing with each other for limited resources, so the best performers will get more support from headquarters," said Wu Changqi, associate dean of Peking University's Guanghua School of Management. "So, it's understandable that the promising China branch can add workforce while other regions cut jobs."
As well, surging demand in China stimulated pharmaceuticals to build new facilities that create job opportunities for locals.
It is estimated that more than 200 million households in China will earn over 40,000 yuan a year by 2025, with spending on private healthcare and medicines by urban consumers expected to record double digit growth every year in the coming two decades, according to a report of PricewaterhouseCoopers, an industry assurance, tax and advisory services provider.
Eli Lilly, eyeing the market potential, has pledged to inject $100 million in China for R&D from 2008 to 2012. In February, Pfizer set up a $60 million manufacturing facility in northeast China's Dalian city, while Bayer announced plans to invest up to 100 million euros over the next five years for an R&D center in Beijing.
Peng pointed out that China's three-year 850 billion yuan medical system reform package that aims to provide more accessible and affordable healthcare to the country's 1.3 billion people provides new opportunities in smaller cities and rural areas, which in turn drives pharmaceuticals to recruit more employees to reach those regions.
Executives of foreign drug behemoths all admit that a large part of new recruits will be sales people who will be in charge of setting up distribution networks in China's western and central areas and in county-level hospitals.
"Qualified people specialized in this kind of work are not easy to get," said Peng, explaining that they should have pharmaceutical background, be familiar with medical systems and local cultures in underdeveloped areas - very different than in large cities - as well as have hard-working and easy-going personalities.
Ricks said campus recruitment is key to finding new employees who have a professional medical background. People who leave other sectors and turn to the pharmaceutical industry are also welcomed. Executive headhunting is used for managerial positions.
Peng of Huatai said finding and retaining talent is a real challenge for pharmaceutical companies because the number with medical backgrounds cannot keep pace with the surge of demand, resulting in ever-increasing competition among various companies.
Lilly China's Ricks estimated that turnover is as high as 35 to 50 percent in local drug firms and 20 to 30 percent in multinational companies. In Lilly China, the figure is 5 to 10 percent.
"In finding and retaining good and skilled people our strategy is to build from within," he said.
Peng attributed the relatively lower turnover to bigger salaries at multinationals.
"Multinationals are particularly attractive to R&D talent as their research facilities are usually world class and international communication is much more convenient and up to date."
Wu of Peking University said companies that make efforts to recruit new talent and provide a professional, ethical corporate culture are smart.
"They are accumulating high-level human resources and preparing for the coming recovery," he said, predicting that the emerging markets, including China, will still develop faster than developed economies when rising from the economic slowdown.
"Talent will be the most needed resource in the recovery - it is hard to cultivate in a short time," he added.
Beijing seeks to attract talented overseas Chinese
June 15th, 2009Beijing is working to entice some of the talented Chinese people working overseas to return home.
The municipal government has established a program to assist overseas Chinese who are under 55 years of age, have obtained a PhD overseas, and can work in Beijing for more than six months a year.
Professors in famous overseas universities and research institutions and those who are employed as senior managers in well-known multi-national companies are the key targets of the program.
Beijing's goal for 2009 is to attract between 30 and 50 of these types of people back from overseas.
University graduates earn less money
June 12th, 2009University graduates who left school in 2008 are earning less money than their classmates did one year ago. That's according to a newly released Employment Report on China's university graduates. As CCTV reporter finds out, salaries for graduates from major universities fell at a steeper rate than graduates of vocational schools.
The report shows that graduates from major universities earn on average about 2,500 yuan a month. That's down 14 percent from the previous year. Meanwhile, monthly salaries for graduates of non-major universities fell to about 2000 yuan, on average. That down 11 percent. And the monthly salary on average for vocational school graduates is 1,600 yuan. That's down only 5 percent.
Wang Boqing, professor of Southwestern Univ. of Finance & Economics, says, "when the economy is good, enterprises are willing to hire graduates from good universities. But when the economy is bad, they are more willing to hire students from ordinary schools to save costs."
The report also says for graduates with bachelor degrees, engineering and business management majors have the highest employment prospects. But graduates with majors in law and philosophy have the lowest employment rate. As for vocational schools, students focusing on resource exploration and mapping have the easiest time finding jobs. But students studying tourism and cultural administration find the most difficulty in securing jobs.
The employment report also shows that more students in Yunnan, Jinli, Ningxia, Shanxi and Xijiang are willing to start their own business. But students in Shanghai, Hainan, Jiangsu, Fujian and Beijing are less willing to become entrepreneurs. This suggests that finding a good job is still the top choice for most university graduates. They seem to choose to start their own businesses, only if they can NOT, first, find a job.
China faces challenge as graduates seek jobs
June 11th, 2009This is a key period for college graduates looking for jobs. China is facing a great challenge to ensure millions of graduates nationwide find employment amid the economic slowdown.
In the northeastern province of Jilin, a series of job fairs are helping to address the issue. 17-thousand jobs are on offer at this job fair alone, which is free to both recruiters and job seekers.
So far nearly 50-thousand college graduates have secured jobs in Jilin Province, but that is only one third of the province's total number of grads.
Shanghai, Tianjin and Guangdong Province, where many major universities are clustered, are encouraging graduate students to seek work in smaller cities where competition for jobs is not so severe.
Shenzhen employment market warms up
June 10th, 2009The employment market in south China's major manufacturing hub of Shenzhen is heating up. According to the Shenzhen employment authority, the city requires 20-thousand more workers.
Workers are needed in sectors like printing, civil engineering, office maintenance, real estate and education.
Officials say the current labor shortage is due to both rising productivity of manufacturers and a massive return home of migrant workers in the last few months of 2008. But the employment situation has yet to return to its ideal past.
Before the global financial chaos there were 1.27 jobs available for every worker. Now that number has been reduced to only 1.04.
China recruits college graduates for social jobs
June 9th, 2009China has launched its first social worker recruiting event for college graduates. Beijing is offering 2000 social worker posts for fresh college graduates this year.
Over 16,000 students are taking the qualification exam on Saturday. Around one third of the candidates have PhD and Masters degrees. The students will be competing for various positions, including jobs in community resident committees and community health care stations. It's expected that the city will expand the program within the next 2 years.
China Mobile to invest 31b yuan in Shanghai
June 8th, 2009China Mobile Communications Corporation (China Mobile), the country's biggest mobile operator, plans to invest 31 billion yuan ($4.54 billion) in Shanghai in the coming three years according to an agreement signed between the two on Monday.
The plan was revealed in a frame agreement signed by China Mobile and the Shanghai government, which aims for further cooperation in the information industry in Shanghai between 2009 and 2011.
China Mobile will help Shanghai become an international financial center by opening 100,000 wireless POS/ATM machines, offering fixed-mobile information service for 800 financial institutions and mobilizing 8 million subscribers of its customized mobile banking services in the three years.
The company plans to allocate 3 billion yuan for constructing Shanghai's TD network with a signal that will cover urban area and major rural areas this year. It plans to spend 1 billion yuan for the information service for the Shanghai 2010 World Expo.
It also pledges 600 internships and 3,000 jobs for Shanghai university graduates and residents.
China Mobile registered a 29.6-percent increase in net profit to 112.79 billion yuan last year.
China sees job growth
June 5th, 2009China announced Wednesday there was a recovery in its job market in the first four months of this year with 3.65 million urban residents finding new jobs.
Noting the improvement, announced by the Chinese Cabinet, Yang Weiguo at Renmin University of China told the China Daily the short-term measures instituted to counter the employment pressures have been adequate. He said China now must create jobs that meet the needs of development.
The measures taken by the government to boost employment include expanding domestic consumption, reducing enterprises' tax burden, encouraging graduates and migrant workers to be self-employed and setting up vocational training.
Xinhua reported China's urban jobless rate stood at 4.2 percent at the end of 2008 with 8.86 million on the unemployment rolls.
The government plans to allocate $6.13 billion this year for creating jobs, up 66.7 percent from last year, the State Council said while warning the country still faced a tough employment problem because of labor oversupply and economic structural issues.
The employment situation remains especially grave for college graduates, whose numbers are expected to swell to more than 6 million this year, even as 1 million graduates from last year are still trying to find jobs.
China's employment situation improving
June 4th, 2009China's employment situation is improving. That's the message to come out of the State Council's meeting on Wednesday. But the top administrative body also acknowledged that the situation is still severe as the country's economic recovery is not yet secure. It also produced new measures to safeguard jobs.
Premier Wen Jiabao chaired the State Council's regular meeting, which focused on employment. The central government said new jobs so far this year exceeded 3.6 million by the end of April and migrant workers are returning to factories. It added the country's job situation has made a turnaround from the slide seen in the forth quarter of last year.
But the State Council admitted it's not yet clear what the full effects of the global financial crisis will be for China and that uncertainties remain in its recovery. It cited fewer new jobs and a higher jobless rate compared with 2008. The State Council also said a 42 billion yuan special employment fund in the central budget should be put in place as scheduled. That's 67 percent more money than was allocated last year.
Regarding the creation of new jobs, the government pledged to bolster private economies, which always provide the largest pool of employment. It also said that various industrial development plans should focus on job creation.
College graduates, migrant workers and low-income families will get more help. And the government will offer training programs for all kinds of people, from migrant workers to graduates. The government called for improved job center services and will now offer subsidies to interns serving in central and western China.
Since the second half of 2008, China has implemented various measures to boost employment. And now, the State Council said it would redouble efforts to help people ride out the economic downturn.
Recruitment fair for overseas graduates
June 3rd, 2009A job fair targeting overseas graduates was held recently in Beijing. It attracted more than one thousand graduates who had returned to China, diploma in hand.
45 companies and institutions attended the fair, bringing nearly 600 job opportunities with them. Some potential employers included the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shougang Group, and China Agricultural University. On the other side, graduates of overseas universities have adjusted their requirements, such as location and salary.
She said most of her fellow students had lowered their expectations on salary. But many employers say they are not interested in the educational background of job seekers. What they care for is the actual ability to work.
Overseas Graduate, said, "The advantage of overseas graduates is mainly in their language skills. But as foreign-funded firms are in depression, there is less room for us to make use of our advantage."
After staying overseas for a long time, these students are not familiar with the domestic working environment. This is a major concern for employers who attended the fair. Some overseas graduates say they hope there will be more chances for them to have face-to-face talks with domestic firms, because that will help them get the experience they need.
Graduates struggle as China slows
June 2nd, 2009At a recent job fair in Beijing, thousands of soon-to-graduate Chinese university students dashed from employer to employer handing over their resumes.
Just a few hours after the two-day fair opened, one company had received 50 job applications for just five positions.
Final-year Chinese students, like others across the world, are currently looking for their first job as they prepare to graduate.
But in China this is the first time in many years that the outlook has been so bleak - and this year there will be 6.1 million new graduates.
The vast China International Exhibition Centre in Beijing has several aircraft-hanger-sized halls, and last week it hosted a job fair geared towards graduates.
Fewer jobs
Companies with stalls at the fair said there were just not as many jobs available this year compared to previous years.
One of those with fewer vacancies was Best Talent, a recruitment firm that finds senior and middle managers for international companies.
"There are a lot of candidates at the moment, but even those with a good education are finding it difficult to find jobs," said the company's Vicky Liu as she accepted a curriculum vitae from yet another job hopeful.
A few months ago, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimated that about 12% of last year's graduates had still not found jobs.
That figure was three times higher than the official urban unemployment rate.
Last week's fair attracted students from across China, including 24-year-old Zhang Hai, who is about to graduate from a university in far-off Nanjing.
"Because of the financial crisis the outlook is not that good," said Mr Zhang, who is spending two months in China's capital looking for work.
"There are not that many jobs, but lots of students looking for work so obviously there's a lot of competition," he added.
Mr Zhang, who has been studying computer science, has been given money by his family to rent a flat in Beijing while he looks for work.
"I'm just about to graduate, I'm getting older and I'm still using the family's money so of course there's some pressure on me to find a job," he said.
Who to blame?
Despite the tough competition, students do not seem to be blaming the government for the current difficult job situation.
"It's a pity, but I can't complain too much. I just have to continue looking for something suitable," said Wang Jiumei, who also attended last week's Beijing job fair.
The 25-year-old student, who studies English in the nearby city of Tianjin, intends to go abroad to continue her studies if she cannot get a job.
Chinese government officials will be pleased to hear that students are not blaming them for their poor employment prospects.
They had been worried that high graduate unemployment could lead to discontent which, in turn, could cause social unrest.
The Tiananmen protests, which took place 20 years ago in May 1989, showed the government that dissatisfied students are capable of taking their demands onto the streets.
"For the last 20 years the government has been concerned about keeping the university population happy," said Arthur Kroeber, managing director at Beijing-based economic research firm Dragonomics.
He said the current employment problems facing graduates was not just because of fewer jobs, but also because there are now more graduates.
But Mr Kroeber believes the problem will sort itself out over time as university students lower their expectations.
"Certain kinds of clerical jobs that used to require only a high school education will increasingly be taken up by people who have a university education," he said.
Help from the government
But the Chinese government is not just sitting idly by and hoping that will happen. Officials are trying everything they can think of to help graduates find a job this summer.
In the city of Weifang, in Shandong Province, officials in one government department have been told they each have to find jobs for three graduates.
In a country where personal networks are important, Weifang officials have been asked to use all their contacts and influence.
Beijing city government has just announced a scheme to employ 1,600 graduates on three-year contracts as assistants to officials in the villages around the city.
This will not only help develop rural areas, but also find jobs for students who might otherwise be out of work.
The salary for these positions is relatively low - 2,000 yuan ($293, £183) a month for the first year - but the city government is promising other perks to encourage potential applicants.
After their contracts finish, village assistants could be given a Beijing resident's permit, which is vital for all those that want to continue working in the capital.
There are those who believe the Chinese economy is in good shape - despite the global recession - and will soon bounce back, creating more jobs for graduates.
Oliver Huang, whose company Mediaco helps foreign firms check how their brands are doing in China, is optimistic.
"Markets in Europe and the US are now mature, but China is still an emerging country, where the demand is still huge," he said at the Beijing job fair.
But with economic growth slowing and unemployment rising, the government is taking no chances.
Officials ordered to pull strings for graduates
June 1st, 2009An order for officials to pull strings to ensure jobs for graduates has sparked heated debate in an east coast city.
The personnel bureau in Weifang, Shandong province, ordered every official in the bureau to use their influence and connections to help at least three university graduates this year, Qilu Evening News reported.
Netizens doubted whether graduates from poor families, among the 60,000 graduates hunting for jobs in Weifang this year, would get priority for assistance.
Zhang Zhengzhi, the deputy director of Weifang's personnel bureau, said the May 14 order is not compulsory and would give priority to poor students.
"Do the math - 60 officials can only help 180 graduates in our city," he said.
"We only want to set an example to promote employment rather than take care of all job hunters."
In the face of a gloomy employment crisis, a Chinese human resources expert yesterday warned that local governments should make more efforts to facilitate the transfer of information between graduates and enterprises.
"The rule may put pressure on officials, who might play tricks with some companies to provide temporary offers to graduates to enhance the employment rate," said Wu Yongping, deputy director of public policy and management institution under Tsinghua University. "An official's duty should focus on organizing more employment fairs for students, and providing students' information to companies."
China centrally administered SOEs to recruit more graduates
May 31st, 2009China's 99 centrally administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) planed to recruit more than 203,000graduates this year as to ease job pressure, the state-owned assets administrator said.
The recruitment number is 7 percent more than that of the previous year.
The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) said more than 45 centrally administered SOEs would increase their headcounts this year, while 30 of them would hire the same amount of graduates compared with last year.
China National Petroleum Corp., the country's largest oil and gas producer and supplier, has by far held more than 30 job fairs in universities. It planed to recruit 13,000 graduates this year, an increase of 37 percent year on year.
China Railway Construction Corp., the nation's largest contractor, has recruited 13,000 graduates, an increase of more than 45 percent, or 4,060 people, compared with 2007.
Among all the SOEs, the Commercial Aircraft Corp. saw the largest increase. It planned to recruit 1,362 graduates, which was212 percent more than its previous plan.
The SASAC said it would strengthen supervision over the SOEs to put in place the recruitment. It also urged to further expand employment by offering more scientific research projects and probation jobs.
Baidu Staff Strikes Over Salary Cuts
May 27th, 2009Dozens of employees from Baidu's (Nasdaq:BIDU) South China subsidiary stopped work and began protesting changes to their salaries in front of Guangzhou's Tianhe District Labor Bureau after negotiations with a Baidu manager failed, reports 163.com. Unnamed employees said they were made to sign a new salary agreement in late April without fully understanding it, and the subsidiary's sales department was required to sign off on new KPI metrics in March, the report said. The salary revision was carried out nationwide and accepted in Beijing and Shanghai, said a Baidu insider. Baidu did not comment on the news, the report said. Baidu Chief Operating Officer Ye Peng said the company had not experienced a strike and seemed unaware of the protest, according to the report.
The new salary system and KPI requirements, which employees described as "impossible to fulfill," became effective May 1 and may halve the salaries of most lower-level sales staff, said employees attending the protest. Management will also accept a large pay cut, they said. According to an unnamed mid-level manager, the changes will affect about 200 employees in Guangzhou and more than 1,000 in the entire South China region, including Shenzhen and Dongguan, said the report.
Ye Peng announced the dismissal of three mid-level managers in charge of sales and operation during his visit to the company's Guangzhou subsidiary on March 27.
Taiwan April jobless rate at record, to rise further
May 26th, 2009Taiwan's April seasonally
adjusted jobless rate rose to a record 5.77 percent as
manufacturing and financial sectors were hard hit in what the
island that is suffering from what may be its longest recession,
the government said on Friday. Like most of Asia, Taiwan's unemployment rate has been
climbing steadily during the global downturn, with analysts
expecting the rise to persist in coming months as any economic
recovery will take time to filter through to the jobs market. In March, Taiwan's jobless rate hit 5.72 percent.
"Job prospects across various industries have dimmed
tremendously. Unless the global financial market situation
improves, the outlook in the job market remains bleak," said Sue
Ann Lee, an economist at Forecast Ltd in Singapore. "The uptrend in unemployment is still in sight," Lee said. Some analysts expect the jobless rate in Taiwan, a key
supplier in the global technology chain, to peak at around 6
percent in late 2009. Taiwan has a total labour force of 10.882
million out of its 23 million population. "Our jobs market is undergoing severe times now," said Huang
Jiann-jong, an official at the statistics agency, told a news
conference. "We're still seeing a lot of company closures." The state planning commission plans to keep the island's
average jobless rate at 4.5 percent this year, up from 4.14
percent last year, while President Ma Ying-jeou this week said
the unadjusted jobless rate would not rise above 6 percent. Taiwan has been hard hit by an export slump, with its economy in the first quarter shrinking by a record 10.24 percent
from a year earlier, although analysts said the worst was over.
The government on Friday said Taiwan's commercial sales in
April fell by an annual 9.5 percent, improving from a 12.2
percent decline, with analysts expecting closer trade ties with
China to help boost consumer spending. This week, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co
the world's top contract chipmaker, said it would
rehire hundreds of laid-off employees after revenue recovered,
although most companies are still keeping their workforce trim. "Overall, the labour market remains fragile and we expect
the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate will ultimately hit
the 6 percent ceiling," Christopher Wong from HSBC said.
Graduates sign up for jobs in funeral industry
May 25th, 2009MORE than 100 college graduates signed employment contracts with 15 funeral parlors and cemeteries yesterday, officials said.
Most of the firms will arrange training for the 108 graduates before they start work. The Shanghai Funeral and Interment Association said some jobs, such as selling grave sites, were still available.
"New graduates may not be suitable for sales work," said Wang Hongjie, director of the association. Such positions usually demand more experience as you need to deal with grieving family members.
Wang said most employees in the industry at present were middle-aged or close to retirement and younger people were needed.
Han Rui, who has just graduated from East China Normal University, has a master's degree in folklore - the highest academic qualifications among the new hires. She is to train at the Yishan Funeral Parlor in Minhang District.
"I found a sense of belonging in the industry," she said. "And I believe my major will help me a lot in the work."
The companies received 3,220 resumes at a funeral industry job fair in March. More than 400 applicants were selected for interviews, of whom 250 participated in short-term training.
Unemployed graduates in China to reach 3 million in 2009
May 22nd, 2009The global financial crisis is predicted to create an army of three million unemployed university graduates in China this year, or about 40 percent of the 7.8 million graduates, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The overall number of jobseekers is expected to swell to 48 million, as economic growth slows to 6.5 percent or less in 2009.
The prospects are bleak for college graduates. Zhao Beiping, a student career counsellor at Wuhan University of Technology, told the Financial Times last month: “Graduates are fixated on getting jobs as civil servants, in foreign companies or big state-owned companies, and in the big cities—in short, jobs which, they have been led to believe, are best-paid and safest.”
The message was that students have to lower their expectations. With rising unemployment, many graduates will have to accept low-paid jobs. Graduates from Wuhan University of Technology, for instance, have already had to lower their starting monthly salaries from between 2,000 and 4,000 yuan (about $US300 to $600) to just 1,800. Some have to compete with rural migrant labourers for jobs.
Zhang Ming, from the China Youth University of Political Science, told the Financial Times that he went to job fairs held at two prestigious universities in Beijing in March. “But the morning was reserved for their own students, and by noon, there was almost nothing left,” he said. Zhang was thinking of looking for work in the export factories of southern China, but with exports down and job losses there, he said he might have to go to more economically backward provinces.
Graduate numbers have been rising as a result of Beijing’s policy of expanding university education over the past decade to supply cheap skilled labour for local and global corporations. In 1998, 3.4 million Chinese students attended university. By 2008, the figure had increased more than six-fold to 21.5 million.
The Wall Street Journal explained: “China is suffering from a higher-education equivalent of a global credit bubble.” Most Chinese children receive basic education so that even poor farmers can be trained to operate factory machinery. At the top of the education ladder are 75 elite universities that are well funded by the central government. In between are 2,100 less prestigious campuses where the vast majority of students are taught in what are little more than substandard degree factories.
The Wall Street Journal commented: “While experts say the country needs mid-level technical staff, many of these universities have tended to lure tuition-paying students with programs such as English, tourism, government, journalism and law. These are cheap—no large outlays for equipment are necessary—and appeal to Chinese sensibilities, which see education as a path to a government or other white collar position, and not as training for a technical job.”
The lack of technical staff has driven up wages in recent years, lowering the profitability of US corporations operating in China. According to the Wall Street Journal, Beijing should focus more centrally on providing technically trained graduates to meet the needs of global investors.
When it ordered the university expansion in 1998, Beijing paid little toward the programs that ultimately cost nearly $US100 billion, forcing campuses to accumulate large debts and charge extortionate tuition fees. The policy of “user pays” was part of Beijing’s unleashing of market forces across the board, from the dismantling of state industry to the privatisation of urban housing and healthcare.
In the economically backward province of Anhui province, its 50 universities now owe $1.2 billion to banks. Some institutions have had to use half their tuition fees just to make debt payments. Even the more developed Guangdong province had to spend $30 million last year to prevent a number of campuses from defaulting. Teachers’ wages and equipment purchases had to be cut, while class sizes have generally doubled across the country.
Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, for example, enrolled just 1,500 students until 1998 and also ran hospitals and research institutions. By government order, the university was forced to increase enrolments by a third. As the tiny campus in downtown Nanjing could not hold the new students, they were forced to stay in local hotels. Cafeterias were converted to classrooms. In 1999, the university was forced to borrow $200 million from a consortium of banks to expand further. The campus was moved to Nanjing’s Xianlin University City, which houses 11 other universities and is plagued with corruption and profiteering.
Such “university cities” have sprung up across China as part of the property boom. In 2004, government auditors found that only half of the Nanjing “university city” was used for education. The rest comprised commercial projects run by corrupt officials and real estate speculators.
Teachers at the Nanjing medicine university were angry, the Wall Street Journal reported. Ji Wenhui, a scholar of classical Chinese medical texts, complained that the library’s holdings had increased by just one half—compared to the 11-fold increase of students to 17,000. The university had 1,200 faculty and staff, only 20 percent more than when it was much smaller.
Ji told the newspaper that the school was at one point paying $60 million a year in interest, compared to total revenues of just $30 million. In 2006, the provincial government intervened to restructure the university’s loans by using one-quarter of its budget to pay off debt and cutting teachers’ salaries by a quarter.
The sharp rise in unemployed graduates has provoked fears in Chinese ruling circles of social unrest. Beijing is still haunted by the spectre of the large-scale student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989, which unleashed broader protests by workers that were only crushed with the use of tanks and heavily-armed troops. The Tiananmen Square massacre paved the way for a flood of foreign investment to exploit China’s cheap labour under police-state conditions.
Chinese capitalism’s high rates of economic growth over the past 20 years have only intensified the country’s social and economic contradictions, which will inevitably produce explosive social struggles.
In the 1980s, university graduates joined the privileged state bureaucracy, while workers were employed by state industry. Today, most workers are private sector employees with little social protection, and are now suffering mass lay-offs, due to the global economic crisis. Most university graduates are not part of the emerging middle classes, but are merely skilled labourers, subject to the same capitalist exploitation.
Last month, to head off discontent, the Chinese regime ordered local authorities and state enterprises to hire more graduates. However, many of the state industries that used to guarantee jobs to graduates have been sold off or destroyed. In the civil service exam last year to join the state bureaucracy, there were only 1.3 jobs available for every 100 applicants.
Unrest is already widespread among Chinese students and graduates. Among workers and the rural poor, tens of thousands of sporadic protests are taking place against job losses, social inequality and rampant official corruption. What Beijing fears is that, as in the past, protests among students will ignite a broader class movement of the working people against the regime and the intensifying capitalist exploitation.
China's labor departments help 6.98 mln workers get back wages in 2008
May 21st, 2009China's labor departments help 6.98 million workers get back 8.33 billion yuan (1.22 billion U.S. dollars) of their wages in 2008.
The figures were released Tuesday in a bulletin regarding human resources and social security in 2008 by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the National Bureau of Statistics.
Labor departments overhauled 1.81 million employers last year and tackled 483,000 disputes, the bulletin said.
Departments focused on redressing problems regarding migrant workers' overdue wages, illegal employment and supervising enforcement of the Labor Contract Law.
The bulletin did not mention how many offenders there were or how they were punished.
Labor problems were also discovered through investigation of complaints from workers.
The bulletin also said labor departments discovered 15.62 million workers did not sign contracts with their employers in 2008, which is required by law.
In addition, about 164,000 employers did not pay around 4.9 billion yuan (718.48 million U.S. dollars) in insurance premiums.
Norges Bank hiring in Shanghai
May 20th, 2009Norges Bank Investment Management, the world's third largest sovereign wealth fund after Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, is looking to add to its portfolio management team in Shanghai.
First set up in 1990, NBIM is an entity under the Norwegian central bank responsible for the management of three funds with total market value exceeding $300 billion. It runs the Government Pension Fund, the Government Petroleum Insurance Fund and the Norwegian Foreign Exchange Reserves. Prior to opening its Shanghai office in November 2007, the company already had a presence in London, New York and Oslo.
NBIM received approval as a qualified foreign institutional investor (QFII) from the China Securities Regulatory Commission in October 2007 and now runs a fund worth roughly $200 million in China. The Shanghai office is also responsible for maintaining the fund's Asia-Pacific portfolio, which as at end 2008, represented 16.2% of NBIM's equity investments and 5.8% of its fixed-income portfolio.
Now NBIM wants to add an investment manager to head up its global technology, media and telecom, or TMT, portfolio to be based in Shanghai. There are also openings for a new CIO, COO, chief risk officer, as well as chief treasurer in its London and Oslo headquarters.
External managers have done well out of NBIM, even against the backdrop of the financial crisis. In 2008 they were able to source $64.4 million in management fees and $75 million in performance fees from the pension portfolio of the fund. It has also contributed $52.3 million in revenue to custodian and settlement services.
But that might be set to change. Where in the past, investment managers at NBIM were given utmost flexibility to run their portfolios likened to mini hedge funds, after its unfortunate bets in financing the likes of Lehman Brothers and agency MBS securities, the market is expecting that NBIM may revert back to its passive investment style.
However, officially, the fund is still open to suggestions for long-only equity mandates between the $50 million to $250 million range. In Asia, it is interested in equities in Thailand, Greater China, South Korea and India, as well as Japanese small-caps. It says it will not invest in non-listed equities, private equity, non-listed real estate, option strategies, socially responsible investment (SRI) funds, top-down asset allocation funds, balanced portfolios or convertibles.
China to create 3 mln jobs in light industry
May 19th, 2009BEIJING, May 18 (Xinhua) -- The State Council, China's Cabinet, Monday announced that it would endeavor to create 3 million new jobs in light industry in the coming three years by boosting domestic demand.
The State Council in February unveiled initial plans to boost light industry in a bid to buoy the economy together with the 4-trillion-yuan (586 billion U.S. dollars) stimulus package presented in November and nine other specific industry stimulus plans including petrochemicals, textiles and other sectors.
The General Office of the State Council presented the detailed light industry stimulus plans Monday on its Chinese website www.gov.cn.
The government would give financing support to small and medium-sized light industry companies with good development potential in a bid to create more jobs, according to the plan.
The industrial output of the light industry stood at 2.62 trillion last year, accounting for 8.7 percent of GDP. Total exports reached 309.2 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 21.7 percent of the national total last year.
The production volumes of more than 100 types of Chinese light industry products, including home appliances, plastics, furniture and others were the world's highest.
The industry employed around 35 million workers by the end of 2008.
Chinese light industry has felt the pinch from the global economic downturn and waning export demands.
Since Feb. 1, an estimated 900 million Chinese rural residents were eligible for a rebate of 13 percent on the prices of home appliances, in a move by the government to boost domestic sales of light industry products.
These products include color TV sets, refrigerators, freezers, mobile phones, washing machines, computers, water heaters, motorcycles, air conditioners and others.
"China will beef up efforts to bolster innovation and industrial upgrading of the light industry, aiming to foster 10 light industry conglomerates whose annual sales will exceed 15 billion yuan," according to the plan.
In addition, the government wants firms across the country to make existing facilities and production processes more environmentally friendly.
The government ordered companies to improve the light industry's products mix and reduce its pollutant discharge. Chemical oxygen demand (COD) must be cut by 10 percent or 255,000 tonnes by 2011 from the 2007 level. Waste water discharge will be reduced by 29 percent, or 1.95 billion tonnes by 2011 from the 2007 level, according to the Monday’s plan.
"China would eliminate outdated production capacity of 30 million units of low-efficient refrigerators and freezers, 600 million units of incandescent bulbs and others," the plans stated.
The government will also step up efforts on improving product quality and is scheduled to formulate 450 new industry standards by 2011 in areas including food additives, meat products, wine making, dairy products, beverages, furniture and others, according to the plan.
Online Email Shows Microsoft Will Cut Jobs In China
May 8th, 2009An email, which China's Xinhua News Agency reports is rumored to be an internal email from Microsoft, is being spread online, stating that a new round of staff reductions at Microsoft will affect the company's employees in the Greater China region.
According to the email which is said to be signed by both Liang Nianjian, CEO of Microsoft Greater China, and Zhang Yaqin, chairman of Microsoft China Research and Development Group, the global staff reduction will affect few of employees in Greater China, but the company has not disclosed the exact number of employees to be involved.
Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, reportedly sent an email to all staff of the company on May 5, announcing that that company would quickly complete its plan of reducing 5000 staff to lower employees' distress. Earlier this year, Microsoft already cut about 1400 jobs globally, and at that time, a few of the employees in China were affected.
So far, there is no direct comment from Microsoft China on the report.
Ernst & Young Cuts Staff In China
May 6th, 2009Ernst & Young, one of the world's biggest auditing companies, is reportedly encouraging its staff in China to leave the company.
According to an insider quoted by local media, Ernst & Young recently issued a notice, asking employees to sign an agreement with the company about their departure from the company. The insider disclosed that employees of the company's auditing, risk consulting, and tax departments across China are mostly affected and as many as 20% of the employees in these departments have been asked to leave.
However, Ernst & Young denied publicly that it is reducing staff or encouraging them to leave. The company said that it has not cut any jobs, but instead it has launched a human resources initiative to encourage staff to take a low-pay leave on voluntary basis and encourage them to take the Certified Public Accountant examination.
Questioned why the company has launched this initiative, some employees quoted in local media believe it is not because of the current financial crisis, but that the company has not done well on localization and has hired too many foreign employees in China and this has led to an increase in human resource costs.
It is understood that starting November 2008, Ernst & Young and KPMG began to think of staff reductions. Earlier, Chinese media reported that Ernst & Young had written to its employees in China asking them to consider taking a 40-day low-pay leave between July 2009 and 2010.
China’s Graduates: How Much a Month Did You Say?
May 4th, 2009For Liu Kai and Yu Min, about to graduate from Harbin Institute of Technology’s Weihai campus in Shandong Province and on a job-hunting trip in Beijing, the indignities are piling up.
For one, as students from outside Beijing, they aren’t allowed into job fairs held on the campuses of some Beijing universities. At the job fairs they do attend, most jobs are either too low-level, sometimes just requiring a high-school diploma, or too advanced, geared for applicants with years of working experience.
But the main source of humiliation is the issue of pay. For applicants with no work experience, the base salary for a sales job is as little as 1,000 yuan to 1.500 yuan (around $146 to $234) a month.
“We don’t have high salary expectations as long as we can make a living on our own,” says Liu.
But can they live on 1,000 yuan a month?
To put it in perspective, a migrant worker in Beijing earns around 1,200 yuan a month, and many so-called ayis — or aunties, a term for housemaids – can make twice that. As for accommodation, sure, it’s possible to find a 12-square-meter single room beyond Beijing’s Fifth Ring Road for 350 yuan a month but a 1-bedroom apartment rarely rents for less than 1,500 yuan a month, judging from listings at real-estate portal Soufun.com.
A survey of more than 1,000 college graduates from 14 universities in Tianjin finds that 9.8% expect a first salary of below 1,000 yuan a month, while 62% see a monthly pay in the 1,001- 2,000-yuan range, while not one expects a salary beyond 5,000 yuan (in Chinese here).
At the job fairs, Yu finally lands an interview for a sales position with a monthly base pay of 1,000 yuan. A plus is that food and dormitory-style accommodation are paid for. But he still passes on the chance after a phone call from his parents. “My mom strongly rejected my idea to go for this company, as she didn’t think the 1,000 yuan salary was enough for me to survive on in Beijing,” he said.
Yu’s mother doesn’t want him to accept anything for less than 3,000 yuan a month. Judging from the job-fair billboards, that seems an increasingly unrealistic goal. “I don’t see any possibility of that for now,” Yu says.
At a job fair in Zhongguancun, nicknamed Beijing’s Sillicon Valley, a privately owned company selling cosmetics online is hiring telemarketers, at a base salary of 1,500 yuan a month. “We indeed see a lot more college graduates applying for such comparatively low-level positions this year”, said human-resources manager Liu Yansong.
China jobless rate rises
April 30th, 2009BEIJING (China) - CHINA'S registered urban jobless rate, the only official measure of unemployment in China, rose to 4.3 per cent at the end of the first quarter of 2009 from 4.2 per cent three months earlier, local media reported on Wednesday.
It marked the highest registered urban jobless rate since June 2006, though the figure is based on a narrow population segment and probably understates the real unemployment level by a wide margin.
Officials, concerned about the prospect of rising unrest, have warned that China faces a severe test this year in providing enough new jobs, especially for the country's millions of migrant workers and new graduates.
The registered urban jobless figures exclude migrant workers and farmers. Economists say the real jobless rate is probably at least twice as high.
Yin Weimin, minister of human resources and social security, was quoted by a financial website, caihuanet.com, as saying that the end-March jobless rate hit 4.3 percent.
Can China Handle Massive Unemployment?
April 29th, 2009It's an understatement to say that the job market is getting tight in China. That's the inevitable conclusion from today's WSJ cover story "China Faces Grad Glut After Boom At Colleges." This corroborates a March article in China Daily that put on a positive spin on the situation with this headline: "More Teaching Jobs for Graduates." The gist there is that the government will pay for schools to hire more teachers to soak up some of the graduate pool (gotta love Chinese media for looking on the bright side of things). China blogger Michael Pettis commented on this trend last month with some optimism about what this could mean for China's future when he wrote:
"If more Chinese graduates are forced – by terrible job prospects – to consider starting their own businesses, the long term consequences for China should be positive although, as everyone running a small business in China will tell you unendingly, starting and running businesses here is extremely difficult and, what is worse, it is never easy to know when you are and when you aren’t legally compliant. Still, China really does need more entrepreneurialism and one of the unexpected benefits of the crisis may be to boost small businesses."
The simple fact is that China will benefit over the long-term if college grads actually leverage their education to create value and be entrepreneurial rather than just use it to get hired to work in the bullpen fielding calls for Ctrip.com (CTRP) -- see above photo. Though in the short-term, there could be some real pain.
So what
Now, if you're a regular reader of this blog, then you know our Global Gains mindset. We're immediately asking "Who benefits?" and "Who gets hurt?" by this big picture trend.
The losers, I think, are pretty obvious. They include companies such as 51Job (JOBS), which does job placement in China. Now, they'd be in a good place if they got paid by job seekers to help them find openings. Instead, 51Job gets paid by corporations who are looking to do recruititing...and there's not a whole lot of recruiting going on right now.
Other losers are companies that cater to urban working professionals. These, after all, are what college graduates become, and there are fewer of them this year than there were in previous years. A company like Ctrip, which helps Internet-savvy Chinese book travel, looks like a clear example despite the fact that it's well-run and a leader in the travel space in China. Its addressable market will just be smaller in the near-term, and the company may achieve lower growth rates as a consequence.
Winner winner chicken dinner
On the flip side, there are going to be companies that do benefit, and I think the obvious ones there are firms that help young Chinese people become more competitive job applicants. This quote from Jane Yang in the WSJ is illustrative: "There are no job prospects for someone like me," she said during a quick meal at the school's cafeteria. "I think I'll just go to grad school."
McDonald's To Recruit 10,000 Employees In China In 2009
April 28th, 2009Despite the economic slowdown fast food giant McDonald's has announced that based on its good performance in China, the company plans to recruit 10,000 new employees in the country, of which, 80% will be college graduates.
Kenneth Chan, the newly appointed CEO of McDonald's China, told local media that talent is very important for the company's continuous development in the Chinese market and recruitment is related to McDonald's business expansion and the promotion of its 24-hour services.
Chan said China is one of the fastest growing markets for McDonald's and the company's comprehensive service models, including breakfast, 24-hour services, and dessert stations, in this market play important roles in adding income to the revenue of the restaurants. But it also means they need more employees to do this work. In fact, McDonald's already started to select quality talents in 2008 and entered several famous Chinese universities, including Peking University, to attract their graduates.
In addition to the recruitment plan, McDonald's launched a China leadership development plan for the first time to provide professional training to its talent management team and outlet expansion team to make preparation for its further expansion.
China labour disputes rise as economy slows
April 24th, 2009BEIJING (AFP) — The number of labour disputes in China have soared amid the global financial crisis as laid-off employees seek salaries owed to them by suddenly defunct companies, state press reported on Wednesday.
A total of 98,568 cases involving labour disputes were filed in Chinese courts in the first three months of 2009, up 59 percent year on year, the China Daily said, citing figures from the nation's supreme court.
"Amid the global financial crisis, the number of businesses going into the red or going bankrupt continues to grow, leading to more disputes over salary claims," Du Wanhua, a top official with the court, was quoted as saying.
Du said the rise was also likely due to the introduction last year of a labour contract law that provided a more solid legal footing for complaints and increased workers' awareness of their rights.
The newspaper said the increase followed a 93 percent surge in such cases in 2008 to 286,221.
Chinese officials have repeatedly warned of the potential for widespread unrest if unemployment continues to grow.
The World Bank last month forecast China's economy would grow 6.5 percent in 2009.
That would be its slowest expansion in nearly two decades and well below the eight percent level that Chinese leaders say is needed to keep enough people in work and to avoid unrest.
The economy, which grew nine percent in 2008, has slowed sharply amid the collapse of overseas markets for China-made goods due to the world economic downturn.
Thousands of factories and other businesses have failed in recent months, throwing millions out of work and leading to protests in some areas as angry workers demanded back pay owed by failed companies.
Bank of China goes on hiring spree in Switzerland
April 22nd, 2009Bank of China, China's second largest lender, has made seven senior hires for its new Swiss private banking office, with an emphasis of coverage on the Middle East and Latin America.
BoC became the first Chinese bank to open a private banking office in Switzerland last November, offering private banking and a fund management service.
The new hires were detailed in a press release from the bank. Fatima Al Arabi joins as head of institutional clients, the Middle East. Mohamad Bleik joins as co-head of private banking, in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Teresa Cheung-Constantin, joins as a senior private banker.
Jean-Pierre De Barro joins as head of sales. Julien Froidevaux is head of the independent managers department. Jose Luis Piccinini joins as head of institutional clients, Latin America. Daniel Alexander Rieber, joins as senior private banker, Latin America.
The new hires report to Jacques Mechelany, the former chief executive of Heritage Fund Management, who last November was hired to head the new private bank.
The private bank is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bank of China (UK), which is itself a subsidiary of the Bank of China group.
A spokesperson for the bank did not immediately return calls.
Commentary: Stimulus package no solution to long-term development
April 21st, 2009BOAO, Hainan, April 19 (Xinhua) -- When the world's third largest economy is walking out of the shadow of economic downturn, it has found more problems that demand to be immediately addressed when looking into a long-term picture.
Government and business leaders attending the Boao Forum for Asia, a platform for regional cooperation, agreed that the crisis will be over, but China can not return to the former export-oriented development pattern that depends on the demand in the United States and Europe. Those days are over, and now the country should learn to walk with both legs -- domestic demand and exports.
When unemployment rate started to rise, the government adopted the 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package at the end of last year. It is true that government-sponsored infrastructure projects have created jobs for construction workers, but what will they do when the projects are over?
The stimulus package can not replace a long-term strategy for the country. With 1.3 billion people, China needs sustainable economic growth. Growth creates jobs. Jobs mean stability.
But where can China find the key to sustainable growth and stable employment? This question defies a simple answer.
As an emerging economy on the way of industrialization and urbanization, the situation is extremely complicated and diversified across the nation. However, the bottleneck that affects robust economic growth is more or less the same in many areas. To break them will definitely unleash enormous driving force for the economy.
The small and middle-sized enterprises (SME) in the private sector have sparked unprecedented economic boom since China adopted the reform and opening-up policy in 1978.
From Huawei to UTStarcom, from Baidu to Alibaba, these players -- not state-owned industrial giants -- are often fighting at the frontier of reform and development. As effective and efficient players in Chinese economy, the SMEs have been offering stable jobs for China's ever-growing labor force.
However, when the financial crisis comes, bank lending often goes more to larger state-owned enterprises instead of the SMEs, and the latter are often the first to go bankrupt. This is unfair, and definitely hinders the healthy development of the economy.
Reforms are already underway, and this problem should be addressed with concrete measures from both the government and the banking system.
Another way to make China's human resources better contribute to the economy should be the development of service industry. Instead of making things, people can do things to make money. More boosts should be given to information technology, telecommunications, medical care and education.
These sectors, rather than traditional factories, will give a platform for China's huge number of college graduates, who get the opportunity of using their education to make money and create wealth for the country.
The lack of talents in key fields such as the financial sector and management also restricts the development of the national economy.
Good practices have been made in larger and state-owned companies. Ever since 2003, China's State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) have started recruiting executives for China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
The application was open to top talents worldwide, and some of the SOEs even cancelled limit to the nationality of applicants. From 2003 to 2007, the SASAC hired 91 executives out of 5,985 applicants, 11 of whom had overseas experience.
Other companies should take similar measures. Not only should they introduce management talents, but also hire more experienced financial staff. When the Wall Street is laying off employees, it is high time that Chinese companies bring these talents to China to boost domestic growth.
China needs reforms, in many fields. As a developing country facing varied challenges, China should be prudent in blending long-term economic reforms and short-term stimulus policies.
The two aspects should be carried out in parallel. And one thing should always be born in mind: No policy solves everything.
Novartis in hiring mood - in China
April 20th, 2009Big Pharma continues its march into emerging markets. Chinese newspapers are full of a Novartis expansion push into their country, which is expected to boost employment and lead to--gasp!--a recruitment push for sales reps. And Pfizer said today it would mount a tender offer for Pfizer India stock, seeking to buy another one-third stake in the publicly traded company.
Novartis is ploughing money into its Chinese operations, including R&D and sales and marketing. Joe Jiminez, CEO of Novartis Pharma, wouldn't say exactly how much the company is investing there, only saying that it's "a considerable amount," according to China Daily. The company plans to launch six new products in the country while boosting its clinical research, too.
China recently announced a healthcare reform initiative that would emphasize treatment for chronic disease; that's something Novartis could capitalize upon, too. The newspaper says Novartis intends to "further strengthen its cooperation with the Chinese government and hospitals" in light of that reform package. The upshot? More jobs. Novartis added about 500 to its Chinese workforce in 2008, and it aims to recruit even more this year, the majority of them in sales.
Next, Pfizer: The company now owns some 41 percent of its Indian subsidiary, with the rest publicly traded. The drugmaker wants to boost that stake to 75 percent, in a tender that could be worth about $136 million. The offer is expected to open in June, managed by HSBC Securities in India; it comes in at about an 8.6 percent premium over last week's closing price.
Wal-Mart rejigs jobs in China
April 17th, 2009Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, yesterday launched a job optimization and regrouping program to reduce labor costs in China.
Under the program, the company plans to relocate some of the mid-management staff at its stores to similar posts in the new stores that are being opened in China.
The company intends to start this by shifting five to six mid-management posts from each of its present stores, said Leally Huang, public relations manager, Wal-Mart China.
Wal-Mart had 144 stores across China by the end of 2008, and plans to open 23 new stores by the end of the first-quarter this year.
"Those who are unsatisfied with the program and want to leave would be given adequate compensation, but we will try and see if we can retain them," said Huang.
The company's decision come close on the heels of a report in National Business Daily that Wal-Mart was implementing a lay-off program in China, its largest since entry in 1996.
Around 10,000 staff including 2,500-odd mid-management personnel and many others at different lower levels from Wal-Mart's 144 stores were reportedly demoted or asked to leave with compensation.
Huang, however, has denied the report. "The program is not about job cuts. It is a corporate interior personnel reshuffle that has been necessitated due to the decline in our corporate business," she said.
Hurt by the economic slowdown especially in the US, Wal-Mart's global sales revenue dropped by 0.1 percent in the last five weeks of 2008, which according to the company, is far below its expectations.
The company, however, said markets like China, Brazil and Mexico are still showing robust growth.
Company executives maintained that they are still scouting for new opportunities outside of the US, especially in Asia-Pacific, with China figuring as one of the most prominent locations for growth.
Huang said Wal-Mart's China business grew in 2008, but refused to disclose details. "Wal-Mart's China expansion plan has not been deterred," she said.
In 2008, Wal-Mart opened 19 stores, compared to 30 in 2007.
It is reported that Wal-Mart's regrouping program has not gone down well with employees from the Guangdong and Hunan provinces turning to the local trade unions for protection.
"They are just special cases, and Wal-Mart will sort them out," Huang said.
Wu Ruiling, deputy secretary-general of China Chain Store & Franchise Association, said supermarkets are one of the few areas in the retailing sector that has not been negatively affected by the financial crisis.
France-based Carrefour said it will not cut jobs in China, while Wu-Mart, another leading player with 700 stores nationwide, said it plans to recruit around 3,000 to 4,000 this year.
Best Buy: No Plan to Slash Jobs in China
April 16th, 2009Best Buy China has not gotten a job cut scheme from the headquarters yet, said Ms. Qian, noting that the New York-listed company will continue its expansion in the country in spite of the global economic downturn. By far, the electrical appliances retailer has opened more than 100 stores in China, one of its most critical markets abroad.
Earlier this February, Best Buy unveiled its plan to eliminate as many as 250 jobs at corporate headquarters in the US, part of its efforts to pare costs amid the lingering financial crisis. In addition, the company and its UK partner have decided to put off the opening of their first outlet till 2010, months later than planned.
McDonald's to step up hiring in China this year
April 15th, 2009Fast food chain McDonald's will recruit more than 10,000 people, hike salaries of existing staff and set up training and development programs for employees this year, its country head told China Daily yesterday.
Kenneth Chan, the newly appointed chief executive officer of McDonald's China, said the chain will open more outlets this year to keep pace with rising business growth.
The company will also incorporate more performance-oriented metrics and raise employee salaries nationwide by at least 6.3 percent, Chan said.
This is Chan's first public announcement of the company's strategy for the year after his appointment last month following the exit of Jeffrey Schwartz, the former China chief who bid farewell to McDonald's after working with the chain for 40 years.
Chan's appointment comes at a time when the financial crisis has spared very few countries, including China. And, sustaining the growth momentum of McDonald's under Schwartz will be a key challenge for Chan when Chinese consumers are actually tightening their belts.
"Actually, I am not concerned about China, as I am confident about the long-term potential of the market," Chan said. "This year will mark the beginning of the company's most rapid expansion in China."
Last year, McDonald's said it planned to add 175 new outlets in 2009 to the current 1,000 it has in China, the biggest addition ever. In the interview, Chan refused to disclose new outlet numbers for the year.
In 2008, the head count at McDonald's China outlets grew by 8.9 percent, double that of the United States and the European Union, making China its fastest growing market worldwide.
Susanna Li, vice-president of human resources at McDonald's China, said besides recruiting more people, it will also invest in training and developing Chinese talent.
"McDonald's is not only a company that sells hamburgers, but also a talent-oriented enterprise. McDonald's has been trying to create training opportunities for different levels of staff," she said.
KFC is the largest fast food chain in China, with more than 2,300 stores in 450 cities. Company executives told China Daily last December that KFC would open more restaurants in 2009 than "the previous year's average of 400" new food joints.
Sources said KFC's annual recruitment figure for the year will also exceed 10,000 people.
McDonald's set up its Hamburger University in Hong Kong in 2000, also its seventh worldwide, to train its Chinese staff. The company plans to open another on the Chinese mainland next year.
The company also launched the China Development Leadership Program this year, which aims to develop skills that will help employees find the best location for new outlets.
Salary gap in China widening
April 14th, 2009Salaries grew slower and pay disparities between various industries rose last year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said yesterday.
Salary increases for urban employees were down 1.5 percentage points in 2008, with average salary before tax at 29,229 yuan (4,280 U.S. dollars). The survey did not cover private enterprises or individual businesses.
The salary growth is relatively high given the backdrop of a global economic slowdown," said Su Hainan, director of the wage committee of the China Association of Labor Studies.
"But as people earn more, they more than ever need an improved social security system so that they can spend more to expand domestic consumption."
Su forecast pay increases of 13 percent this year while a report by the Hong Kong based HR Business Solutions predicted salary rises of around 11 percent on the mainland.
The NBS report also showed that the gap between eastern and western/central regions is narrowing, which Su described as a "good sign".
This is partly because export-oriented enterprises in the eastern and coastal regions were the hardest hit in the financial crisis, leading to millions of layoffs.
The report also found the salary divide between the highest and lowest paid industries has widened, with the former 10 times more than the latter.
Salaries in the securities sector were 172,123 yuan, 5.9 times the average level. Employees in timber processing and wood and bamboo products were the lowest paid, with a salary of 15,663 yuan.
China publishes national human rights action plan
April 13th, 2009The Chinese government published its first working plan on human rights protection Monday, pledging to further protect and improve the country's human rights conditions in an all-round way.
The National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2009-2010), issued by the Information Office of the State Council, or Cabinet, highlighted various human rights that would be promoted and protected in less than two years, from people's right to work, to the rights of detainees and the disabled.
Death penalty will be "strictly controlled and prudently applied," "impartial and fair trials" of litigants will be guaranteed, and the people will enjoy more rights to be informed and to be heard, the government promised.
More job opportunities will be created, per capita income will be increased, social security network will be broadened, and health care and education will become more accessible and affordable in order to guarantee the people's economic, social and cultural rights.
The document also detailed how the government will do to "guarantee human rights in the reconstruction of areas hit by the devastating earthquake in Wenchuan, Sichuan Province" on May 12, 2008, in which about 87,000 people were confirmed dead or missing, more than 370,000 were injured, and at least 15 million people were displaced.
"The realization of human rights in the broadest sense has been a long-cherished ideal of mankind and also a long-pursued goal of the Chinese government and people," said the document.
But the government admitted that "China has a long road ahead in its efforts to improve its human rights situation," though unremitting efforts have been made to promote and safeguard human rights since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, which "fundamentally" changed the fate of the Chinese people.
The government said the plan was framed in response to the United Nations' proposal, on the basis of past experience, "in the light of practicality and China's reality," and by following the essentials of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Insurers and banks to cut execs' pay
April 10th, 2009CHINA said yesterday that executives of state-owned banks and insurers are paid too much and ordered those firms to cut their salaries to promote income fairness amid an economic slump that has wiped out millions of jobs.
Executive pay for 2008 at financial institutions, which many are still calculating, must be cut to 90 percent of 2007 levels, with deeper reductions at those experiencing financial trouble, the Finance Ministry said.
"Individual financial enterprises pay top executives too much. The gap between them and average workers is clearly expanding," the ministry said in a statement on its Website. It said pay cuts were needed to "further equalize distribution of incomes."
The announcement gave no details on how many levels of management would be affected or how authorities will decide which institutions require bigger cuts.
All of China's major banks, insurers, stock brokerages and other financial institutions are government-owned. But many have Hong Kong subsidiaries that handle a portion of their operations and function as private companies, and it was unclear how executives linked to those entities might be affected.
The ministry praised executives who have already cut their pay, especially at institutions that are financially healthy.
Chinese executive pay is modest by Western standards but many times that of ordinary workers.
Yang Chao, chairman and chief executive of China's biggest insurer, China Life Insurance Co, was paid 1.7 million yuan (US$248,000) last year. That was a reduction from Yang's 2 million yuan in 2007 salary and bonuses.
China's second-largest insurer, Ping An Insurance Co of China Ltd, has been the only such institution to suffer a major loss because of the global crisis. It said yesterday that its 2008 profit fell 99 percent from 2007 because of losses on its stake in European bank Fortis NV, which ran into trouble with credit derivatives.
Ping An's chairman, Ma Mingzhe, announced in February he would give up his 2008 salary because of the Fortis loss.
China's state-owned asset regulator earlier called for lower payments to senior executives at the 141 centrally administered state-owned enterprises.
The growth of senior executives' salaries must be lower than profit growth and reflect performance, Shao Ning, deputy director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, said last week.
Among the SOEs that have cut back, Wuhan Iron and Steel (Group) Co said it will reduce executive salaries by 50 percent and other employee salaries by as much as 20 percent. Aluminum Corp of China plans to cut executive pay by 50 percent and trim compensation for other staff by 15 percent.
The average gross salary for China's urban residents rose 17.2 percent in 2008, 1.5 percentage points slower than in 2007, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday. The average salary for city dwellers amounted to 29,229 yuan last year, up 4,297 yuan from 2007.
The average salary in the securities sector - 172,123 yuan - was the highest among all industries last year.
China In-Focus: China Agritech To Cut Executive Pay
April 8th, 2009China Agritech, Inc. said it is implementing a salary program for its senior management team which will reduce the cash compensation of their base salary levels for the 2009 year as part of a new cost control plan.
In a statement, the company said it will consider a performance-based option plan, "to further incentivize the management team to focus on producing greater business and financial results."
As a part of the cost control measures, China Agritech is also reducing the standard of senior management's travel expenses, in particular of business class travel and lodging.
Beijing-based China Agritech is engaged in the development, manufacturing and distribution of liquid and granular organic compound fertilizers and related products in China.
The company sells its products to farmers located in 26 provinces of China.
Momentive to cut 80 jobs in Willoughby, taking work to Newark, Ohio, and to China
April 7th, 2009Momentive Performance Materials Inc. said it intends to cut 80 hourly and salaried workers at its 130-employee Willoughby quartz tubing, fiber-optics and lamp materials plant.
The Albany, N.Y., based company, a spin-off from General Electric Co., will determine the timing of the layoffs during a 60-day consultation with the IUE-CWA, an electrical union allied with the Communications Workers of America Local 707, which represents hourly workers in Willoughby.
Momentive plans to consolidate work at its plant in Newark, east of Columbus. Work force reductions at that plant have thinned employment by almost 100 since fall, including 23 layoffs last week.
The job cuts, including those in Willoughby, are part of a broad set of cost-saving measures in response to a slowdown in Momentive's business. The company hopes to lower expenses by $40 million.
Specifically, the manufacturer is cutting quartz-related jobs in Willoughby and in Geesthacht, Germany, and moving part of the work at those two plants to its facilities in Newark and in Wuxi, China. The company also said it would temporarily reduce salaries for its top executives by 10 percent and for most professional and administrative employees by 7.5 percent, and require some workers to take an unpaid week off.
Those laid off at Willoughby, some of them members of IUE CWA, may be eligible for severance pay and other benefits, a written statement said. "Qualified employees would also be eligible for tuition reimbursement and retraining benefits for a period of up to 12 months" and, possibly, preferential consideration for employment at other Momentive locations, according to the statement.
The Willoughby plant will remain open and continue to process materials that are used in quartz-product manufacture. Momentive said it did not expect to hire additional employees at the Newark site and will hire only a small number in China.
As of the beginning of April, Momentive had about 4,600 employees globally. It said the salary cuts and furloughs would affect about 2,300 employees and probably would continue through 2009.
The company manufactures silicone materials, sealants and adhesives, special heat-dissipating ceramics and quartz tubing. The products are used in lamps and in the semi-conductor industry as well as in a range of consumer, industrial and medical products.
Momentive grew out of the sale of GE Advanced Materials to equity firm Apollo Management L.P. in 2006. It has become a global leader in the development and manufacture of specialty materials. Momentive's revenue in 2008 was $2.6 billion.
In addition to the Willoughby and Newark plants, it also has Ohio facilities in Strongsville and Richmond Heights, according to spokesman John Scharf.
Nortel Cuts 200 Jobs in China
April 3rd, 2009Nortel Networks Corporation (OTC: NRTLQ and TSE: NT) has reduced about 200 jobs in China, as part of its global 3,200-employee layoff plan announced in February 2009, according to Nortel Networks (China) Ltd.
The global job cut is expected to end in several months, but it is not clear whether more employees in the country would be dismissed. In part of Nortel's earlier 1,800-employee layoff plan, a certain number of employees in China were fired. By far, the company's China-based staff has had over 4,000 employees.
On January 14, the global telecoms equipment provider filed for bankruptcy protection, due to a credit squeeze and a sales decline. And it is set to shut most of its R&D centers over the world, only retaining those in Canada and China.
In addition, Nortel has established four subsidiaries in China for production and technological services, as well as two cutting-edge R&D centers in Beijing and Guangzhou.