Recruiting in China

Zhaopin.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 - 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 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.

As 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.

Employees at international firms on China's mainland enjoyed more disposable income this year than last year due to a drop in inflation, according to a report released yesterday by Hay Group, a global consulting firm.

Though the average salary increase over the past 12 months from August 2008 was 5.3 percent, which is much lower than the 10.2 percent rise last year and 9.1 percent in 2007, the real wage inflation this year is 5.9 percent, even slightly higher than that before the financial crisis because of the high consumer prices in the past two years.

Real wage inflation is the average base salary movement minus Consumer Price Index, the main gauge of inflation.

"Many employees may complain they haven't got salary increase since last year. In fact they have already enjoyed a rise in disposable income, even higher than last year, due to the lower CPI," said Henry Sheng, a Hay executive.

Zhu Qingyang, an official of Shanghai Human Resource Agency Association, said: "It is difficult to foresee an optimistic future in the salary increase because of the current uncertain economic environment. We should wait and see."

Summer 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.