Recruiting in China

BEIJING, 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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Royal 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.

HONG 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.

HONG 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.

THE 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.

TAIPEI, 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.