Recruiting in China

By Nick Zieminski

China may have plenty of man power, but it could also use some help from Manpower.

U.S. staffing company, Manpower Inc. , is one of a number of business recruiters putting emphasis on the world's most populous country, where a rapidly developing economy is driving the demand for engineers, finance professionals and technology specialists.

China's growth rates of about 10 percent per year, which already makes it the world's No. 4 economy, pushes companies to develop leaders at a faster pace than most other countries.

A McKinsey & Co. study estimates that, within five years, China will need 75,000 executives who have either Western technical skills or language ability -- ideally, both. Only about 5,000 are in the work force now.

"The challenge is not in finding 500 or 1,000 people to man the factory. The challenge is in finding leadership skills and functional management skills," said Iain Herbertson, president of Asia-Pacific for Manpower, which has 350 consultants in 11 Chinese cities. About half its contracts are for information technology workers.

For now, the numbers are relatively modest. Of Manpower's $4.4 billion in second-quarter revenue, the "other" segment -- which includes China, Japan and Australia, as well as Mexico -- reported sales of $577 million. Its operating profit of $15 million was about 9 percent of Manpower's quarterly total.

But the segment is among the company's fastest growing. Within three to five years, Manpower will have a staff of 1,000 to 1,600 in mainland China.

New rules this month allowed foreign companies to own a controlling stake in their local joint ventures if they set up shop in Pudong, the fast-growing financial center in Shanghai.

The move is part of a broader relaxation of rules, which should help draw more companies to China, and will enable Manpower to expand its range of services, Herbertson said.

"Our business is more than doubling every year," Herbertson said in a telephone interview from Shanghai.

Monster Worldwide , which this year raised its stake in ChinaHR.com to 45 percent, may take majority control of the venture by 2008, though the unit is currently losing about $2 million per quarter.

"We don't expect it to be (profitable) because we are at the beginning of the beginning," said Marcel Legrand, Monster's senior vice president of strategy and corporate development. "Profit is not of great interest to us in that particular market -- it's about an investment."

ChinaHR has about 600 staff and 4 million resumes on file, but those numbers will grow as more Chinese go online, Legrand said.

Monster, parent of the world's largest recruitment Web site, followed customers like Procter & Gamble , L'Oreal , and Hewlett-Packard to China, which fits with a goal for international operations to account for more than half of its revenue by next year.

That global expertise, including serving multinationals in other markets, is what differentiates companies like Manpower and Monster from their smaller competitors.

"We can bring to China the best of what happens in Brazil, or what happens in Korea, and they can help us export their best practices," Legrand said.

This week, Monster hired a former Nike Inc. executive, Tony Balfour, to head its Asia-Pacific operations.

He will have competition.

Rival job site Careerbuilder.com on Wednesday said it was entering the Chinese market in an exclusive deal with human resources company 51job Inc. , to link to each others' sites and sell job postings and access to their resume databases.

At executive recruiter Heidrick & Struggles International Inc. , Asia-Pacific operations had faster revenue growth and highest profit margins than either the United States or Europe. The region accounts for 10 percent of total company sales, and China about a fifth of that.

Since rules are different depending on the services offered, Heidrick owns 90 percent of its Chinese joint venture, said Kevin Kelly, who heads Heidrick's European and Asian operations, adding that consumer goods, technology and industrial companies are its main clients.

Financial companies, including investment banks, will need experienced staff starting in 2008, when new rules take effect under China's commitment to the World Trade Organization.

Heidrick's China operations are expected to double within three years, and the company is recruiting Chinese-speakers in the United States and Europe for positions there, Kelly said.

"European and U.S. markets are more mature, so everyone sees China's huge potential for developing or expanding their businesses," Kelly said.

(by Asian Legal online & DaCare Legal)

Over the last year or so the number of clients, both private practice and in-house, seeking to recruit lawyers for their operations in Beijing and Shanghai has seen a steady increase and this is expected to continue throughout 2004. Mainland China is a vast and complex market for most businesses and the position is no different for law firms operating there.

Recruiting the right people for offices on the ground is very difficult and for law firms it is often the case of making the upfront investment in people with the returns on the investment lagging far behind. Not only do language skills play a big part but also experience in the local markets is increasingly important. Beijing and Shanghai are different legal markets and if a client is recruiting for example in Shanghai their clear preference is to have someone already in the local market. The trend in the past has been to relocate people with the necessary skills from Hong Kong and, while this will continue, there will be a developing market in both Beijing and Shanghai for people already on the ground moving firms.

The development of local law firms is also worth noting. The writer on a recent trip to Shanghai met with a number of successful local firms who also face complex recruitment issues. While not an immediate trend, it is envisaged that major local players will eventually seek to recruit lawyers from Hong Kong for their offices in Shanghai or Beijing. The practising rules and CEPA already envisage this kind of movement with the only obstacle being the discrepancy in salary levels.

The Mainland in-house market will also continue to develop at a pace. Of all the legal recruitment markets over the last year, the in-house market has held up well. There is an ever-increasing need to recruit good quality local lawyers for in-house positions with multinationals. There already exists a well-organised in-house lawyers group whose members are being presented with an ever-increasing range of in-house opportunities.

There is no doubt that the legal market in Mainland China will continue to grow - the challenge for everyone involved will be how to attract the right people and how to make a return on the investment involved - there will be no easy fixes in this regard.

Search Firm: DaCare Legal Search
Website: www.dacare-legal.com

Office: shanghai, beijing, china
Keywords: legal recruiting, law jobs, attorney jobs in China

THE government wants the percentage of foreign-invested city enterprises with trade unions to exceed 80 percent by the end of this year, the Shanghai Trade Union said yesterday.

By the end of March this year, 9,063 of the more than 11,600 foreign-invested firms in the city had established trade unions, a threefold increase compared to 2003.

Chen Hao, chairman of the Shanghai Trade Union, said establishment of a trade union could help protect workers' legal rights.

Chen cited Shanghai Uchino, an enterprise with 100 percent Japanese investment, as a good example of a company operating with a union.

The Japanese company was set up in Shanghai in 1995. The trade union was established at the same time. Of its 1,900 employees, more than 1,800 have joined the union.

"Every time we make a rule or plan, we discuss with our employees together," said Ji Weizhong, chairman of the company's trade union. "We have held two staff conferences last year and set every contract term with our workers."

Organized by the trade union, the company also signed a special contract with female employees to guarantee their rights and interests. One of the contract terms stipulates that the company will hold health checks for women every year, and pregnant employees can have extra breaks.

"What we do for them added, but what they do for the company multiplied," said Chen Longbao, the company's manager. "We can benefit more, because when employees are favored by their contracts, they will work harder than before."

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Type: Science and Technology Committee Meeting
Venue: Regus Shui On Plaza Centre
12/F Shui On Plaza, 333 Huai Hai Zhong Road
雷格斯环业会议中心
淮海中路333号，瑞安广场12楼
Time: 16:30 to 18:30
Price: Members (RMB): 0

The AmCham Shanghai Science and Technology Committee is pleased to host its third roundtable discussion of the year on May 23, 2007.

Eric Fiedler, Regional Director of Hewitt Associates and current AmCham Chairman, will discuss compensation and benefits data and trends in the Shanghai R&D sector. Fiedler’s presentation will cover how your company can attract and retain talent in this increasingly competitive market, especially regarding leadership and managerial positions.

The S&T Committee meets on the fourth Wednesday of each month. The forum will include an invited guest speaker to address a key topic of interest followed by an in-depth roundtable discussion.

Please email your RSVP to Christine Li at Christine.li@amcham-shanghai.org no later than Monday, May 21, 2007.

Best regards,

Science & Technology Committee

AmCham Shanghai

CHINA is on another shopping spree in the United States that appears to be as much about salesmanship as the country's rapidly growing purchasing power.

Hoping to ease tensions raised by the massive trade imbalance dividing two of the world's economic powers, China has periodically come to the United States on "buying missions" to demonstrate the country's willingness to import more goods and services.

China kicked off its latest campaign on Wednesday in San Francisco with a commitment to buy US$4.3 billion in US technology.

In two weeks, government leaders will begin talks in Washington on the US' US$232 billion trade deficit with China and other issues.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and his US counterpart George W. Bush yesterday exchanged views in a telephone conversation on the upcoming second round of strategic economic dialogue between the two countries.

Hu appreciated the US government's active attitude toward the development of China-US economic and trade cooperation.

Hu said he believes that with concerted efforts by both sides, positive achievements will be scored in this round of dialogue, which will contribute to giving fresh impetus to China-US economic and trade cooperation.

Bush hopes that great achievements will be made in this round of dialogue.

At a posh hotel in San Francisco, a broad cross-section of business and government leaders from China and the United States celebrated 27 contracts signed on Wednesday.

The deals primarily involved computer software, semiconductor and telecommunications companies. The list of US beneficiaries included high-tech bellwethers Microsoft Corp, Oracle Corp, Cisco Systems Inc and Hewlett Packard Co.

California Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi hailed the agreements as an "important step in furthering the deep relationship between this state, this country and China."

To underscore China's resolve to explore more US investments, executives from more than 200 Chinese companies are meeting with their US counterparts in 24 cities scattered across 23 states, said Ma Xiuhong, vice commerce minister.

She met with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the state Capitol on Wednesday, and the governor later said California had nearly doubled sales to China. California exports to China totaled nearly US$10 billion in 2006, Schwarzenegger said.

There are three major avenues in online recruiting.

You can advertise your job openings in the online equivalent of classified want ads and wait for jobseekers to contact you.
And you can browse online resume sites for likely candidates and contact them yourself.
You can also get professional assistance from recruiters and employment agencies who advertise their services online.

We'll be covering each of these hiring opportunities in this Buyer's Guide. An article from the AllBusiness.com Business Advice section, "Recruiting in the Internet Age," gives you a quick overview of these main recruiting avenues ¨C print ads, the Internet, recruiting firms, and referrals.