Recruiting in China

SHANGHAI, China, July 25 /Xinhua-PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- 51job, Inc. (Nasdaq: JOBS), a leading provider of integrated human resource services in China, and Recruit Co., Ltd., a leading information services company in Japan serving businesses and consumers in numerous market segments, including human resource services, real estate and automobiles, announced today a cooperation agreement to establish a new company focused on providing coupon advertising services in China.

Independently incorporated, this new coupon advertising company will benefit from 51job's distribution expertise and leverage Recruit's deep product knowledge to help local businesses to tap into the rapidly growing consumer market in China. 51job operates 23 editions of 51job Weekly and distributes several million copies each week throughout China. A recognized market leader in the printing and distribution of free coupon magazines, Recruit publishes Hot Pepper, which was launched in 2001 and has expanded to 49 area-specific editions in Japan today.

"Combining our companies' strengths and experiences, we believe the new coupon company will provide a compelling and targeted advertising solution for businesses as well as an effective information channel for consumers in China," said Rick Yan, President and Chief Executive Officer of 51job.

Chinese Official Says 'Mass Incidents' Involving Labor Disputes on the Rise

BEIJING (AP) -- "Mass incidents" by workers have been on the rise in China as they struggle to protect their rights amid a roaring, fast-changing economy, a senior national legislature official was quoted as saying in state media.

Yang Jingyu, chairman of the Law Committee of the National People's Congress, China's legislature, was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency on Wednesday as saying the number of labor disputes had increased by more than 13 times between 1995 and 2006.

He did not give any figures or examples, and did not define what constituted a mass incident.

China's communist leaders have been struggling with a widening wealth gap as the country's economy takes off, with urban areas and workers reaping vastly more benefits from economic reforms than rural workers.

"With accelerating industrialization and urbanization in China, infringement on employees' rights are occurring frequently," Yang was quoted as saying.

Yang said only 20 percent of small and medium-sized companies and private companies have signed labor contracts with their employees.

More than half of employers offer only short-term contracts to keep down costs.

"These problems have made it very difficult for the employees to protect their lawful rights," Yang said.

The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN - News) will cut its workforce by 10% in an attempt to cut costs. The company will eliminate 7,600 jobs, an increase from the 3,000 job cuts it announced in February. According to AstraZeneca, the reductions will save the company $900 million per year by 2010.

CEO David Brennan said the job cuts would most directly affect the company’s European sales and marketing staff. After that, the largest staff reductions would be in research and development – “and other areas” – in Britain, Sweden, Germany, France, the United States, and Canada. AstraZeneca will record a $1.6 billion charge in connection with the firings.

While AstraZeneca is cutting back on its expenditures elsewhere in the world, it is spending money to expand its presence in China and build revenues from the country. Also, it seems to be transferring some of its business to China in an attempt to keep a lid on costs.

Last year, AstraZeneca announced that it would spend $100 million over three years in China to build the AstraZeneca Innovation Center China. The R&D facility, to be based in Shanghai's Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, will focus on translational science, developing knowledge about Chinese patients, biomarkers and genetics. The goal is to discover innovative drugs that treat cancer patients in China.

Also, AstraZeneca has a $14 million pact with WuXi Pharmatech (see story), in which WuXi is performing compound collection synthesis for AstraZeneca. The big pharma also entered a collaboration with Shanghai Jiao Tong University that will seek to understand the genetics of schizophrenia.

AstraZeneca was an early entrant into China, establishing operations there in 1993. AstraZeneca China is headquartered in Shanghai, with branch offices in 20 other cities, and a production plant in Wuxi, Jiang Su Province, built in 2001. That facility manufactures about 80% of all the products the company sells in China. All told, AstraZeneca China has 2900 employees involved in the manufacturing, sales, marketing and clinical research of new products.

As we reported earlier (see story), AstraZeneca China will inaugurate a center in China to source APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients) there, with the goal of placing orders for $100 million of API by 2010. Eventually, it expects 90% of its API to come from China.

The API initiative is a vote of confidence in the strengthened Intellectual Property rights now available in China and the high quality of manufacturing there – as well as the lower prices. At the same time as it began its API sourcing in China, AstraZeneca China changed its slogan from “In China for China,” to “In China for Global.”

A SHORTAGE of professionals has led to a decrease in the number of multinational companies offering benefits such as flexible work hours, sabbatical leave and gym memberships to their employees this year, according to a recent survey.

Companies in China offer the second lowest number of benefits in Asia, leading only Japan, according to the report by Hudson Recruitment, a Nasdaq-listed human resources company.

Hudson surveyed about 2,500 multinational company executives in Asia about their hiring expectations during the third quarter this year. Altogether 673 of the respondents are based on the Chinese mainland, mostly in Shanghai.

Among all sectors, 44 percent of respondents said that their companies have a work-life balance policy, which is designed to enable staff to balance the demands of their job and personal life.

The figure fell slightly from 47 percent when the same question was asked in the second quarter of 2005 for the previous survey, the report said.

Companies in the information technology sector are the most likely to offer work-life benefits, with more than 51 percent of those companies having such policies.

The sharpest decline was reported in the banking sector, where the percentage of benefit-offering companies dropped from 56 percent to 40 percent.

Angie Eagan, general manager of Hudson China, said that decline was the result of heavy recruiting by banks.

"Most employers do understand the importance of work-life balance, but they just cannot afford the luxury to be flexible with people due to a shortage of talents," Eagan said.

She added that benefits are easily applied in fully staffed companies. Many companies are struggling to find enough trained workers, however, making it difficult to offer such benefits.

The report indicated that employment expectations remain high on the mainland. Sixty percent of respondents plan to increase headcount in the third quarter of this year, the highest level in Asia.

LABOR officials in the city forced companies to pay 280 million yuan (US$36.98 million) in delayed wage, social insurance fees and illegal deposits from employees from January to June, the Shanghai Labor and Social Security Bureau said yesterday.

The bureau received more than 10,000 complaints about delayed wages or other fees during the period and inspected more than 20,000 companies around the city. They found 6,987 violations of the law involving about 370,000 workers in total.

The bureau wouldn't provide comparison figures from previous years.

About 39 percent of complaints investigated involved social insurance fees, while delayed wages accounted for 26 percent and unpaid overtime was the focus of 19 percent of grievances.

About 150 million yuan in delayed payments were cleared up during the six-month period.

"The number of cases of deliberately delaying wages dropped during the first half of the year," said bureau official Zhang Yuan, without providing detailed numbers.

"Most of the delayed payments were for extra work or overtime working, and the delays were only one or two months, rather than as long as a year," Zhang said.

The bureau said most of the companies found violating the law were private firms based in the city's suburbs. It wouldn't say how many fines were handed out.

Entrepreneur helps Business People Work with Chinese
16 July 07

Doing business in China can be a tricky experience for those with little or no understanding of the language and culture. Languagebite.com, a new Kiwi website, has created a Chinese language course for busy executives that is fun, engaging and takes only three minutes a day.

In what could be a world first, Joanna Lee, the entrepreneur behind the venture, is combining the convenience of online video with a powerful language learning technique. The result is a simple yet highly effective way of learning key phrases and useful information in easily digestible ¡®bites¡¯. Because each lesson is only a few minutes long, retention of the information is very high ¨C even for people who are incredibly busy. Links to the video lessons arrive daily in your inbox and are expertly designed to teach one full phrase each day.

Helping westerners to build rapport with their Chinese business partners is one of the goals of the program. ¡°We teach useful, simple phrases which will show your Chinese clients and suppliers that you have made an effort to learn some language and a little about the culture¡±. The course covers common phrases for everyday interactions including greetings, introductions, eating out, traveling and talking about family. You will even learn how to ask your taxi driver to slow down, which those who have already been to China will know can be an extremely useful phrase!

The lessons are presented by Ming Jin, a lecturer from a Beijing university. Jin happened to be in New Zealand as a research fellow with Auckland University at the time Language Bite was recruiting for the right person to front the program. ¡°Ming is a gifted presenter ¨C she makes a difficult language easy to follow¡±.

Lee, a linguistics specialist, says that Language Bite¡¯s edge over established international competitors is that it is ¡°devastatingly simple¡± - a link to a new online video lesson is emailed directly to your inbox each day. ¡°Language Bite is designed for busy people. You can learn a new language in your own time, at your own place and it only takes a few minutes each day.¡± The video clips are supported by downloadable sound bites (to store on a computer or MP3 player for practicing anytime and anywhere) and written PDF lesson summaries can be downloaded and stored for future reference.

Language Bite have launched with Mandarin Chinese however Lee has plans to introduce other languages in the near future. ¡°Feedback about the concept has been overwhelmingly positive ¨C people love the simplicity and accessibility of the method¡±. The inspiration for Language Bite came from marrying Lee¡¯s passion for languages and teaching with husband Steve¡¯s interest in e-commerce. ¡°We have developed an extremely powerful way to learn a new language. And we look forward to teaching languages in a fun, user-friendly way to New Zealanders ¨C and the world!¡±