Draft set to regulate SOE executives' pay
May 18th, 2009The draft to regulate payment of executives in China's State-owned enterprises (SOEs) is ready for review and approval from the State Council, the country's Cabinet, 21st Century Business Herald cited an unnamed source as saying.
A source from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the authorized agency to make the draft, told the paper that the regulation will set a guideline on salary structure, performance evaluation and other niches that would affect the salary package.
The salary package would consist of three parts, including the basic annual salary, payment based on performance and mid- and long-term incentives, according to the source.
The source added that once passed, the regulation would narrow the income gap between SOE executives and employees, and set the gap at a reasonable level. The Ministry of Finance, the China Banking Regulatory Commission and the China Securities Regulatory Commission would jointly carry out details of the regulation.
In terms of listed companies, the source suggested amending the corporate law to make sure minor shareholders have a say in deciding the pay of high-level executives, and accelerating the information disclosure process.
Even with non-listed companies, information on high-level executives' pay should also be made public to some extent, a move which will make it easier for stakeholders to monitor, said the source.
Supervision agencies such as auditing, finance and human resource departments are also urged to check the income distribution in SOEs, including high-level executives' pay.
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.
TSMC plans to hire up to 300 engineers
May 7th, 2009Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (TSMC, ???), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, plans to hire up to 300 engineers after forecasting more than 80 percent growth in shipments this quarter, said recruiting agency 104 Corp (???), which is helping with the headhunt.
The recruitment drive is part of TSMC’s long-term investment in technological research and development, ensuring that it will be among the earliest companies to benefit once the economy recovers, 104 spokesman Max Fang (???) said.
“It is good timing for local employers to launch large-scale recruitment drives because the nation’s tough job market means a bigger selection,” Fang said. “We believe TSMC is just the beginning and there will be more recruitment programs by local companies later this year because hiring is usually closely linked to an economy improving, as it is now.”
An average of 10 candidates apply for each job offered by high-tech firms today, Fang said, as electronics firms hit by the recession remain cautious about hiring.
The Hsinchu-based chipmaker intends to hire between 200 and 300 design, processing technology and research engineers initially, potentially adding more positions later, Fang said.
As of the end of February, TSMC had about 22,000 employees globally, down 3.8 percent from about 22,800 at the end of last year, the company’s annual report said.
Meanwhile, competitor United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, ??) said it had no plans for significant additions to its payroll because prospects for the second half of the year were still unclear.
However, a UMC official said that the company expected strong growth in shipments in the second quarter.
UMC launched a major restructuring in the second half of last year, tweaking its organizational structure and streamlining its workforce to cut costs and improve profitability.
Separately, a survey conducted by 104 suggested an improvement in the domestic job market.
Job openings have increased 13 percent to 203,000 — the highest figure since last October — since the beginning of the year, when 180,000 jobs were on offer.
However, the number of job openings is half the number of current job seekers, meaning that the unemployment rate may not see an improvement in the short term.
The jobless rate hit a new high of 5.81 percent in March, with 670,000 adults unemployed, government figures showed.
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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.