Recruiting in China

China Postal Express and Logistics Co Ltd, China's largest integrated express and logistics service provider by geographic coverage, also known as EMS, announced on Friday that it has withdrawn its IPO application.

To enhance competitiveness facing dramatic changes in the express delivery market, the firm has decided to fine-tune its original parent and subsidiaries structure to a more effective headquarters and branches management model, the firm said on Friday in a statement. The statement also said that the restructure might affect the firm's IPO process.

Founded in June 2010, EMS had filed an IPO application August 2011 and gotten approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission in May 2012. But it did not get listed upon approval due to a sluggish equity market in 2012. EMS might try to enter the capital market after the restructuring is done, it said.

The country's first pilot cross-border e-commerce platform was launched in the China Shanghai (Pilot) Free Trade Zone (FTZ) Saturday, a move that will make it more convenient for consu-mers from the Chinese mainland to purchase products overseas.

Five types of goods - bags, fashion accessories, skin care and cosmetic products, food and beverages, and maternal and children's products - are already on sale on the online platform, which is called kuajingtong.com.

The operator of the platform, Shanghai Kuajingtong International Co, has already signed agreements with companies from the payment, logistics and retail sectors, and is negotia-ting -coo-peration deals with around 30 -global e-commerce websites including eBay and Amazon, Shanghai Morning Post reported Sunday.

Since the demand for products imported from overseas by Chinese consumers has been growing fast in recent years, the pilot cross-border e-commerce website "will have a bright future if its operator can offer pro-ducts with high quality and reasonable prices, as well as convenient services," Zhang Yi, CEO of Shenzhen-based Internet research firm iiMedia Research, told the Global Times Sunday.

Currently in China, consumers have limited ways to buy products overseas via the Internet. Some of them buy products directly from eBay and Amazon and then pay a third-party express delivery enterprise for transportation of the goods, a method that can sometimes allow them to evade customs duties.

Other consumers purchase pro-ducts overseas via individual vendors on e-commerce platforms such as taobao.com. But many consumers have complained that the products they bought from the individual vendors are fake.

"Kuajingtong.com will have many business opportunities as the demand is huge," Zhang said.

But Zhang also noted that it will take at least one to two years for kuajingtong.com to grab a large market share.

Chinese consumers said they will hold a wait-and-see attitude toward the new platform.

"The types of products on kuajingtong.com are limited so far. I will wait until there are more choices," Xia Tian, a 30-year-old white-collar worker in Beijing who has a one-year-old daughter, told the Global Times Sunday.

Xia has bought maternal and -children's products via websites such as amazon.com and paid third-party express delivery companies for transportation. "This type of purchasing model is already very common among young mothers," Xia noted.

"I still prefer to buy goods via vendors on taobao.com, from whom I have purchased products for two years," Wang Yujing, a 26-year-old white-collar worker in Beijing, told the Global Times Sunday.

Wang said the luxury bags and clothes she buys are 40 to 50 percent cheaper than those sold in domestic shopping malls, mainly because they are tax-free.

Consumers will have to pay tax if they buy products via kuajingtong.com.

But Yan Jing, executive vice-president of Shanghai Kuajingtong International Co, was quoted by Xinhua News Agency as saying Sunday that "the prices for international brands sold at kuajingtong.com will still be 30 percent lower compared with those sold in domestic offline stores."

"Although the consumers have to pay duties via kuajingtong.com, their purchasing activities will be legal," Yan noted.

A recent trial involving a former air stewardess who smuggled in products and re-sold them to Chinese consumers via taobao.com has raised discussions about the legality of cross-border purchasing.

The Beijing No.2 Intermediate People's Court found the former air stewardess guilty last month and sentenced her to three years in jail for smuggling.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange has started simulated trading in equity options, part of a drive by regulators to expand investors' risk-hedging options.

Simulated trading began on Thursday morning, the SSE confirmed to China Daily, and more than 60 securities firms took part.

The shares of Ping An Insurance Group Co of China Ltd, SAIC Motor Corp Ltd, the China 50 ETF and the Shanghai SSE180 ETF were used in the exercise.

The exchange-traded funds track the top 50 and top 180 yuan-denominated stocks on the SSE.

In early December, SSE Chairman Gui Minjie told a forum that preparations "are almost complete" for launching options on individual stocks.

Single-stock options are essentially equity derivatives, giving buyers the right - but not the obligation - to buy or sell a stock at a fixed price within a certain period or on a set date, said Tony Sun, a strategist with Shanghai Tebon Fund.

The options "will allow investors to hedge their positions more effectively. We have limited financial instruments now, but as reform continues and China's financial markets become more global, innovation is a necessity," said Sun.

China introduced equity index futures in 2008, and those instruments remain the only equity derivatives in use. The regulators expanded a pilot program in August 2012 to boost margin trading.

In February, a new pilot was launched to enable securities lending and short-selling of blue chip stocks.

"Individual stock options can be seen as a form of insurance that reduces trading risks. However, options trading prices can be very volatile. Investors still have to be aware of the risks caused by leveraging and volatility," said Xiong Jinqiu, an independent financial commentator.

The China Securities Journal reported earlier this month that the SSE may officially introduce formal equity options trading in April. Some analysts believe the move is meant to stimulate investment in China's blue chips, which have been trading at depressed valuations.

The average price-earnings ratio for the SSE, where most of China's blue chip companies are listed, stands at only 11 times 2012 earnings. On the Shenzhen exchange, which is dominated by small-cap companies, the average ratio is 28.

Change for WMPs

Another development involving the liberalization of the financial markets took place on Wednesday, this one involving wealth management products.

WMPs will be allowed to invest directly in fixed-income products on domestic securities markets, the China Securities Depository and Clearing Corp announced.

The notice said that WMPs will be allowed to open accounts at the Shanghai or Shenzhen stock exchanges. Investment will be confined to fixed-income products, including exchange bonds, credit-backed securities and preferred shares. The latter are often classified as fixed-income products because of their fixed dividend.

Analysts said that the move on WMPs is intended to provide a bridge "linking" interbank market liquidity with the nation's stock exchanges, even though WMPs can't make direct stock investments at this stage.

The outstanding balance of WMPs stood at 9.92 trillion yuan ($1.63 trillion) as of Sept 30, the China Banking Association said earlier this month.

The figure has more than doubled since the end of 2011, and it's up from 7.1 trillion yuan at the end of 2012.

China plans to raise the retirement age for the first time since the 1950s, as policymakers confront the prospect of a shrinking workforce that damps economic growth.

“The age will rise gradually,” Hu Xiaoyi, a vice minister of human resources and social security, said this month. China’s compulsory retirement ages, now 50 for most women and 60 for men, are likely in 2020 to be about five years higher than they are now, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Delaying retirement may be a more effective tool in alleviating labour shortages and driving growth than the easing of the one-child policy announced last month as part of the broadest policy reforms since the 1990s. More than three decades of population control are thinning the ranks of available workers, adding to constraints on expansion as President Xi Jinping’s government seeks to rein in debt-fuelled investment.

“I would think that a lot of people would want to voluntarily work longer if the policies are right,” said Chang Jian, China economist at Barclays Plc in Hong Kong, who formerly worked at the World Bank. “The government would get a lot more mileage from raising the retirement age than a partial relaxation of the one-child policy,” she said.

“Twelve of 18 analysts saw 55 as closest to the 2020 retirement age for women, with five saying 60 and one 65,” according to the Bloomberg News survey, conducted from 22 November to 27 November.

Men’s retirement

The retirement age for men is likely to rise to about 65, according to 14 respondents, while two said it would be closer to 70 and two said it would stay near 60, the survey found.

For women in white-collar jobs, the retirement age is 55, and there are other exceptions such as for heavy labour.

The working-age labor force in China declined by 3.45 million people last year, according to the government. The United Nations has forecast a drop of about 24 million in the population age 15 to 59 from 2015 to 2025, while people age 65 and older will increase by about 66 million.

Scarcity is helping push up labour costs, driving companies such as Samsung Electronics Co. to relocate production to countries including Vietnam.

Raising the male retirement to 65 by 2020 may help keep in the labor force some of what statistics-bureau data show were 41.5 million men age 47 to 51 in 2011. There were 51.5 million women age 37 to 41.

Yu Yongding, a former adviser to the central bank, said a higher retirement age won’t change China’s demographic structure and trends. At the same time, it’s definitely helpful for China’s labour supply, and therefore good for economic growth in the long run, Yu, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview in Beijing.

Pension shortfall

Fourteen Chinese provinces faced a combined pension shortfall of 76.7 billion yuan ($12.6 billion) in 2011, according to a report by CASS, a state researcher, the official Xinhua News Agency reported in October.

“A delayed retirement age, despite its unpopularity, is helpful for China’s economic growth and development by allowing people to work longer and making more efficient use of labour,” said Li Xiaoping, a Beijing-based researcher with CASS’s Institute of Population and Labour Economics.

“Letting people have more children, while more popular, may carry fewer economic-growth benefits because boosting the population alone doesn’t necessarily help expansion,” Li said.

Wang Yuanlong, a 42-year-old taxicab driver in Beijing, said that if the retirement age is raised to 65, I don’t think it’s worthwhile to make my pension contributions.

“It’s bad to think that I have to work every day when I am 65,” Wang said.

Support growth

Avoiding deeper declines in the labour force may help support economic growth that analysts forecast will slow. Expansion will decelerate to 7.4% in 2014 and 7.2% in 2015, according to median estimates of economists in a separate Bloomberg News survey this month.

China is also trying to sustain growth by encouraging some of the 600 million-plus rural residents to relocate to cities and better integrating the 260 million migrant workers who live in urban areas without getting full access to schools and other municipal benefits.

The Communist Party said last month that couples will be allowed to have a second child if either parent is an only child, instead of both parents. The party said it would consider raising the retirement age.

“Delaying retirement will slow the process of China’s labour surplus becoming a deficit,” said Zhu Haibin, Hong Kong-based chief China economist at JPMorgan Chase and Co. The shift will have a much bigger impact on the economy than the change in the one-child policy, because that will only start to affect the labour force in 20 years’ time, Zhu said.

Life expectancy

China isn’t the only nation grappling with the issue. The UK plans to raise the pension age to 66 from 65 by 2020 and may raise it to 68 by the mid-2030s. Australia’s pension age is scheduled to rise to 67 from 65 by 2023, and the government may need to increase it later to 70, the nation’s Productivity Commission said in a research paper last month.

“National average life expectancy in China was 72 for men and 77 for women in 2010,” according to government data. The highest was 82 for women in Beijing and Shanghai.

“The age of 50 or 60 is no longer regarded as old,” Yang Yansui, director of Tsinghua University’s Research Center of Employment and Social Security, said in Beijing. “The pension system just can’t be sustained if the pension access age is not extended.”

Zhaopin.com Announces China’s Top 10 Most Popular Employers for Graduates. (PRNewsFoto/Zhaopin.com)

BEIJING, Dec. 13, 2013 /Emag.co.uk/ — The Zhaopin.com China Best Employer Award 2013 (best.zhaopin.com), co-organized by Zhaopin.com, China’s largest recruitment site, and Peking University’s Corporate Social Responsibility and Employer Brand Communication Research Center, successfully came to a conclusion in Sanya, Hainan province’s capital, also known as China’s Deer City. Zhaopin.com CEO Evan Guo said in his speech at this “Academy Awards” of China’s human resource industry, that he believes that 2014, with the number of graduates spilling out of China’s colleges and universities during the year expected to reach 7.27 million, will be an even more difficult year for job seekers than 2013, a year that had already been considered the most difficult year for employment so far.

(Photo: During 2013, Zhaopin.com joined hands with CCTV in organizing a public-benefit event, Graduates Seeking Employment 2013, with the aim of building China’s largest public platform for the job prospects of university graduates and with the goal of improving social awareness of the plight of college students, in the hope of helping more graduates find suitable positions. “Although the event was purely for the public good, during it we were rewarded for our faith and accomplished the lofty mission of helping thousands of graduates step into society,” Guo said. In the summer of 2013, the “Graduates Seeking Employment” platform ran announcements for 117,389 jobs seeking Chinese college graduates, and one in 100 graduates on average found a job via the platform. In 2014, Zhaopin.com looks forward to working with more companies to offer jobs in an even more difficult employment environment, and expects China Best Employers to play a leading role in the effort.

In China, college students are known as the “favored.” They not only shoulder the hope of the nation, but also are of extraordinary importance to the country’s human resources sector. Today, as China’s HR market shifts to a seller’s market and the population ages, the group of college graduates mainly consisting of the post-90s becomes the vital workforce. Compared to the post-70s and the post-80s, the post-90s generation brings a different perspective to the best employers, and these perspectives will provide important reference points for leveraging the experience of these employers in building leading brands. These factors were the key data points in determining the winner of Zhaopin.com’s China Best Employer Award 2013.

The Zhaopin.com “China Best Employer” report showed that Chinese undergraduates now no longer consider the salary and benefits package as one of the primary factors when looking at all the data points in a prospective employer’s profile. The survey data revealed that “Organizational Management” with 20.6 percent of votes overtook “Salary and Benefits Package” for the first time as the top criterion. This demonstrated that under the growing pressure from the increasingly competitive job market, the undergraduates considered self-improvement as a priority rather than exclusively focusing on material conditions, in a move to be more competitive in the future job market. These findings sound a warning to any employer who is still consider offering competitive salary and benefits packages as the solution to attract top talent rather than improving the quality of their organization.

The report also signaled that there were significant changes in what different types of companies considered their priorities, with one of the obvious trends being that young undergraduates are trying to compete based on their family background. According to the 2013 survey findings, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are falling in attractiveness, with the number of undergraduates willing to work at an SOE declining by over 8 percent from the 2012 results, although undergraduates are more willing to work in state-owned and foreign-funded companies. Foreign-funded companies are becoming more popular among Chinese undergraduates.

Another interesting finding is that under the growing stress of both life and work, undergraduates now no longer prefer to work exclusively in the most developed cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Less than 40 percent of undergraduates surveyed expressed their willingness to work in these three cities, much lower than the percentage in previous Zhaopin.com “China Best Employer” reports. Chinese companies need to pay attention to the high housing prices, long work hours, traffic congestion and air pollution in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou that are forcing more than just undergraduates to want to avoid and get away from these cities.

These findings revealed the obvious changes in criteria that undergraduates apply to the decision making process as they choose what they consider to be the best place to work. The focus on non-material factors among young and sensible undergraduates when considering job opportunities shows the positive trend in the human resources sector across China and in Zhaopin.com’s brand building achievements. Zhaopin.com “2013 Top Employers Gaining Most Attention from Undergraduates” survey is expected to offer more successful brand building cases.

More undergraduates are willing to leave Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to seek work in second and third-tier cities, says a report by a Chinese employment website, the Nanfang Daily reported.

But demand for labor remained strong in 2013, especially in the financial and real estate industries, according to the "Change, Leading Trend; Mission, Boosting Growth" report released by Zhaopin on Monday.

More college students are willing to leave Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to work in second and third-tier cities, different from 1970s and 1980s trends, the report noted.

About 46 percent of students were willing to go to second and third-tier cities in 2011. The 2013 figure rose to 61 percent. The proportion willing to work in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou was 53.8 percent in 2011, plunging to 38.7 percent in 2013.

Vacancies grew 26 percent in central China, 29 percent in western China and 25 percent in eastern China.

Vacancies in the first 10 months of this year increased 26 percent over the same period last year, according to Zhaopin data, with recruitment rising rapidly in the finance and real estate sector.

The financial industry saw the most growth in vacancies, rising 91 percent from the same period last year. Employment opportunities in real estate grew 53 percent. New manufacturing job positions increased 9 percent. Foreign investment companies saw the weakest growth in recruitment of 3 percent.

Demand for labor and talent on the market was large, summarized Zhaopin chief executive Guo Sheng, but undergraduates often could not find jobs to match their majors. Companies didn't always need university undergraduates' skills, but relevant jobs skills.

Companies were more willing to employ workers with experience in society. People born in the 1990s were unwilling to accept a job below expectations, Guo claimed.

"This report for the first time uses the data from the job-hunting Internet, analyzing the relationship between the labor market and macro economy," Guo said. "The year 2013 is a reform year, but also the biggest year of change in the human resources and labor markets."