Recruiting in China

Employment Visa

(Z-visa)

Requirements:

1. One completely filled out Visa Application Form for the P.R. China (Q-1). Right click to save E-form, Pdf form, or Jpeg form.

2. One recently taken 2X2 in. photo showing entire face and without a hat on. Please affix the photo to the application form.

3. Original passport with at least 2 blank visa pages and valid for at least 6 months beyond the date of application.

4. An invitation letter or telegram from the relevant department of the Chinese Government or Government-authorized company.

5. Original Foreign Experts Working Permit issued by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affaris, or orginal and copy of Alien Employment Lisense issued by the Ministry of Labour amd Social Security, or other relevant permit of employment.

6. The spouse or children of the Z-Visa applicant who are following the applicant to stay in China are required to be listed in the above-mentioned invitation letter or telegram. Otherwise original and copy of Marriage Certificate or Birth Certificate to prove their relationship are also required.

7. An applicant born in China who is applying for a Chinese visa with his or her new foreign passport is required to submit his or her Chinese passport or last foreign passport.

8. A child of Chinese descent and born in a foreign country who applies for a Chinese visa for the first time is required to submit his or her Birth Certificate and foreign passport or foreign permanent resident permit (e.g. Green Card) of one of his or her parents.

Reminders:

1. No visa application can be done through mail, email, internet, or any express delivery service such as UPS, FedEx, etc. Visa application should be submitted and picked up by the applicant or someone else entrusted.

2. Z-visa is generally valid for 3 month. Applicants should apply for a residence permit from a local county level Public Security Bureau within 30 days after entering China.

http://www.nyconsulate.prchina.org/eng/lsqz/VisasforChina/t42204.htm#4

BEIJING: Minimum wages in China will be increased this year to offset the sharp rise in food prices that has particularly hurt low-income families, state media reported on Friday, citing the labour ministry.

Local governments must raise minimum wages before the end of 2007 in regions where salaries have risen slowly or are markedly lower than the average, the Xinhua news agency said, citing the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.

"Local governments must adjust minimum wages in a timely manner and ensure that real standards do not fall with the consumer price index going up," the ministry said.

China's inflation rate rose 3.4 per cent in May from a year earlier, above the government's annual target of 3.0 per cent, but food prices have accelerated at a much faster pace.

In a circular cited by Xinhua, the labour ministry said low-income families were particularly feeling the heat after meat and poultry prices jumped by 26.5 per cent in May and the cost of eggs rose 37.1 per cent.

Premier Wen Jiabao also warned in late May that the rising price of pork, the most commonly eaten meat in China, could threaten social stability.

In China, minimum wage standards vary from region to region. At the end of last year, southern China's Shenzhen city had the highest minimum wage in the country at 810 yuan ($105) per month, while eastern Jiangxi province was bottom with a salary of 270 yuan, Xinhua said.

BEIJING, June 28 -- State Grid Corp of China (SGCC), the nation's largest electricity transmission company, yesterday launched a worldwide recruitment plan for its five research and development (R&D) institutes.

Under the plan, the company will recruit 100 top scientists for its R&D work, including four academicians.

The five R&D centers are China Electric Power Research Institute, Nanjing Automation Research Institute, Beijing Electric Power Construction Research Institute of SGCC, Wuhan High Voltage Research Institute of SGCC and State Power Economic Research Institute.

The five institutes now have 2,699 staff members, including four academicians.

"The move will increase the company's R&D capabilities. Last year, we made many breakthroughs in the R&D field," SGCC said in a statement.

The company last year started to build China's first ultra-high voltage (UHV) transmission line. The pilot project will see 1,000 kilovolts of alternating current linking the southeastern part of Shanxi Province with Jingmen city in Hubei Province, passing Nanyang city in Central China's Henan Province.

(Source: China Daily)

Hong Kong, June 28: Multinational companies in China have a hard task hiring people with leadership skills while in India they face unreasonably demanding fresh graduates, a survey shows.

The fast pace of business expansion in Asia's two emerging economic powerhouses has created a talent shortage and a host of challenges for employers.

"Staff are impatient and there are a lot of jobs out there," said Shalini Mahtani, chief executive of Hong Kong-based Community Business. "If companies are not providing good career opportunities, staff will leave."

Community Business, an organisation promoting corporate social responsibility, conducted the survey in Shanghai and Mumbai with Schneider-Ross, a UK-based business consultancy.

Pay is still important as staff in China have no qualms in leaving a company to pick up a higher salary elsewhere, according to the survey. In India, employers say younger professionals are demanding excessive compensation packages, inflated job titles and immediate opportunities for overseas assignments.

One multinational talked of a fresh graduate who came for interview saying he had four job offers on the table and how could the company better that. Such demands were not unusual, the company said.

Pay is talked about openly in India and employees are liable to switch jobs if they know that their fellow graduates from business school are earning more. This makes it difficult for companies to reward good performance, survey participants said.

In China, competition for staff is so acute that one company reported losing a junior member of staff to a local company that more than doubled her salary and offered a position for which she did not have any experience.

The survey interviewed 25 senior managers and HR directors at foreign companies in Shanghai and Mumbai and conducted a focus group in each of the two cities.

A lack of leadership skills among staff poses a real challenge in China and many employees there leave a company because of the attitude or behaviour of their boss, survey participants said.

Western multinational companies are no longer routinely seen as the preferred employer, as staff in both countries often see local companies that are expanding globally as a better opportunity to gain visibility and climb the career ladder. Multinationals now are having to approach second and third tier colleges for staff.

Diversity in the workforce, whether by gender, generation or culture, is also difficult to implement because local managers either are not sensitive to the issue or business is growing so fast they have no time to focus on it.

In India stereotyping of women is still common.

"There's an assumption that women will get married and they'll leave the workplace," said Mahtani.

In China, poor leadership skills means companies often have to bring in expatriates.

People with disabilities are largely unrepresented in both markets, according to the survey.

Long working hours are another problem, particularly in India where colleagues in different timezones expect staff to be available at irregular hours, the survey showed.

Foreign companies with disabled Chinese on the payroll will qualify for tax rebates from next year.

The maximum tax rebate per disabled worker will be 35,000 yuan (US$4,550) a year. Meanwhile, salaries of disabled workers will be exempted from employees income tax.

Companies whose work force comprises more than 25 percent of disabled workers will be eligible for rebates on both income and value-added tax, according to the new policy announced by the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation (SAT).

Those with less than 25 percent of disabled employees will only get income tax rebates.

China has issued a series of preferential tax policies since the 1980s to promote the employment of disabled people.

But a SAT official said that current policies had left many private and foreign companies out in the cold, unable to qualify for tax rebates.

The new policy, which will apply nationwide from next month, is aimed at "creating a favorable taxation environment for fair competition and promoting employment for disabled people," the official said.

Statistics show that China has nearly 83 million disabled people, with only 22.7 million in employment and about 8.6 million officially listed in unemployment statistics.

Entertainment complex with bunnies, gambling slated for debut in 2009

HONG KONG–Playboy Enterprises Inc., publisher of the most widely read men's magazine, plans to open a 40,000-square-foot entertainment complex, including gambling facilities and bunny-suited waitresses, in Macau, located on the southeast coast of China.

Playboy Mansion Macao, to be completed in 2009, will include dining, entertainment and retail shops, company chair and chief executive Christie Hefner said in an interview in Hong Kong. It will be part of the Macao Studio City complex, and the gambling operations will be run by casino operator Melco International Development Co., Hefner said in another interview, in Macau.

Billionaire Stanley Ho's gaming monopoly ended in 2002 when the government awarded licences to five other operators in the city, the only place in China where casinos are legal.

By this year's first quarter, 25 casinos were operating in the 26 square-kilometre territory, creating concern the industry may be starting to get crowded.

"I am less bullish about the ability of demand to soak up the capacity that's coming on line for both retail and hotels," said Peter Drolet, a Hong Kong-based analyst at UOB Kay Hian Pte.

Macao Studio City, a $2 billion (U.S.) joint venture between Hong Kong-listed ESun Holdings Ltd. and partners including Silver Point Capital LLC, is next to the Lotus Bridge, which will link Macau and the mainland Chinese city of Zhuhai. It will include a film studio, a million-square-foot shopping mall and gaming and convention facilities.

"Macau has vast growing power as a travel destination, with the number of visitors expected to double between 2006 and 2011," said Hefner, daughter of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner.

"We will look for the most beautiful, personable women from Asia and the United States" to possibly hire as Playboy bunnies, Hefner said.

She said it was "too early" to disclose how much will be invested in Playboy Mansion Macao and how much gaming will contribute to its revenue. Hefner also didn't say how much Playboy will pay Melco to run the project's gaming operations.

Macau's economy grew 16.6 per cent last year, compared with 6.9 per cent in 2005 and 28.4 per cent in 2004, the year the city's first foreign-operated casino began operating.

Macau, with a population of 500,000, is the closest location for the 1.3 billion people in China to gamble legally in casinos.

Gambling revenue in the former Portuguese colony surged 22 per cent to $6.95 billion last year, surpassing the Las Vegas Strip.

Playboy is the world's best selling men's monthly magazine with its U.S. paid circulation of 3 million.