Recruiting in China

SHANGHAI: 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.

Jiang Jianqing is head of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world's largest bank by market capitalization. His 2008 earned compensation totaled $234,700.

On the other hand, there's the pay of CEOs in the US that needed billions in bailout funds from the US government to stay afloat after taking reckless and over-leveraged bets. The largest US bank CEOs earned in 2008: JP Morgan - $19.6 million, Bank of America - $9.9 million, Wells Fargo - $13.7 million and Citigroup - $10.8 million.

This is the ultimate in heads I win, tails you lose. Long have we justified higher CEO in America pay because of their outperformance compared with banking institutions around the world. Yet, to operate in a capitalist system, executives cannot be able to realize such compensation when their bets go sour.

HONG KONG: Listed companies may lose their talented senior executives amid the economic recovery if the shareholders apply too much pressure on companies to rein in management salaries during the recession, a global human resource expert warned.

Rows over executive salaries and bonuses have intensified, as the global financial crisis wiped out significant share value on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Minority shareholders in Hong Kong have urged senior management teams to give up their multi-million-dollar salaries and bonuses, as a token of regret for their failure to make their companies profitable.

Don Linder, practice leadership manager of global human resources organization WorldatWork, told China Daily in an exclusive interview that it is not desirable to try to cut executives' salaries and bonuses in order to comfort the minority shareholders who have seen their investment capital shrink amid the global financial turmoil.

He said that the annual bonuses for senior executives usually consist of stock options and restricted shares. The executive bonuses, therefore, align with the share performance and the success of the listed companies.

As for the salaries being undeserved, he suggested that they are automatically adjusted down as well as up, as the company's performance and fortunes change. "When the company isn't doing well or the economy isn't doing well, the executives get paid much less, just like the shareholders," Linder said, "The executives will automatically get a pay cut, if the share price falls."

Even though the senior management may have been paid less in bonuses amid the financial crisis, some chief executive officers in the US have taken bold steps forward to make their shareholders feel better.

Earlier in February, chief executive officer of Citigroup Vikram Pandit announced he would take a salary of only $1 and no bonus until the New York-based bank, which has received $45 billion bailout money from the US government, returns to profitability.

Although Citigroup is still dripping red, Pandit's determination has gained him praise and recognition in the market.

Commenting on the one-dollar executive salary, WorldatWork's Linder said the senior executives usually get very large long-term incentive packages, to offset the salary they have given up.

"It is public relations to a degree," he said, "I think it makes shareholders feel better..."

A 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.

BEIJING, 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.

BEIJING — 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."