Recruiting in China

Employment demand across China's first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen saw negative growth year-on-year for the first time, according to a report issued on Thursday by China Institute of Employment Research with Renmin University of China.

The CIER index, designed to monitor China's job climate, rose to 2.43 in the third quarter from 2.26 in the second, indicating continuous improvement in employment.

Increasing recruitment demand among enterprises, decreasing job-hopping in the job market and relatively less job hunting among graduates led to the rising CIER index, said Zeng Xiangquan, director of China Institutefor Employment Research.

The CIER index shows a progressive increase trend in China's first-tier, emerging first-tier, second-tier and third-tier cities, with that of first-tier cities seeing a slight drop over last month.

Employment demand in first-tier cities saw year-on-year drop for the first time, at 7 percent, according to data by recruitment website Zhaopin.

Urban resource optimization, a declining registered permanent residence quota and relocation of outdated industries are the main reasons behind decreasing demand, Zeng said, adding that the trend would continue.

More job applicants are supposed to flow to emerging first-tier cities, he said.

In the IT/Internet sector, which saw the highest employee increase, employment demand in emerging first-tier cities and third-tier cities increased 121 percent and 82 percent respectively, much higher than the national average level of 60 percent, while demand in first-tier cities saw negative growth, with a fall of 2 percent.

Employment in Northeast China saw and uptrend , with the CIER index rising to 1.42 from 1.33 in the second quarter. Employment demand in this region increased 57 percent over last year, much higher than 33 percent in East China.

An intelligent manufacturing headquarter for new energy vehicles is to be laid in Xi'an High-Tech Industries Development Zone, according to an agreement signed on Oct. 30.

Thanks to the combined efforts of the Xi'an municipal government and the Skywell New Energy Vehicle Group, a total investment of 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) will be used to establish a manufacturing base that will have a profound influence across northwestern China.

Liang Gui, vice-governor of Shaanxi province, extended congratulations to the successful signing of the project, noting that the new energy vehicle industry is a typical sunrise industry which will likely spur the development of the real economy and bring unprecedented prosperity to the city.

The partnership with the leading commercial automobile manufacturer is bound to further upgrade the new energy car industry chain and enhance core competence.

Liang urged the government departments to actively support the construction of the base, and create a favorable environment to achieve a win-win result.

Chairman of the Skywell Huang Hongsheng appreciated the help from the authority and gave recognition to Xi'an's strategic role in the development of West China.

The company will exert its edge in research and production, boost related industries to settle in Xi'an and contribute to the economic and social progress.

The first China International Import Expo, or CIIE, will be held from November 5 to 10, 2018, in Shanghai to further optimize the country's trade structure with rest of the world, the Ministry of Commerce announced.

The ministry established the China International Import Expo Bureau earlier this week to gear up preparation for the first expo.

Fu Ziying, China's international trade representative and vice-minister of commerce, said the expo is expected to host businesses from more than 100 countries and regions.

The sponsors of the expo will be the Ministry of Commerce and the Shanghai Municipal Government.

The total exhibition area of the CIIE will exceed 240,000 square meters, covering both national trade and investment fair and business fair.

China's manufacturing activity was stable last month but production increased at its slowest rate in four months, a report released yesterday showed.

The Caixin China General Manufacturing Purchase Managers' Index stood at 51 for October, the same as September, according to the survey conducted by financial information service provider Markit and sponsored by Caixin Media Co Ltd.

A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below reflects contraction.

Sub-indices showed that new orders rose slightly faster, while output growth fell for the third straight month.

At the same time, companies continued to shed staff amid company-downsizing and efficiency-raising efforts, the report said.

The sub-indices for input costs and output prices both eased from the previous month but remained rather high.

"China's manufacturing sector expanded steadily in October," Zhong Zhengsheng, director of macroeconomic analysis at CEBM Group said. "But the stringent production curbs imposed by the government to reduce pollution and relatively low inventory levels have added to cost pressures on companies in midstream and downstream industries, which could have a negative impact on production in the coming months."

Released yesterday, the official PMI in October fell to a three-month low of 51.6.

Divergence of the official data from Caixin data is common as the official manufacturing PMI survey covers 3,000 large and small companies, while the Caixin PMI covers 500, with a focus on small and medium sized businesses.

Wang Tao, chief China economist of UBS, said she expected October data to show softer activity with weaker industrial production and property investment, lower export growth, and largely stable overall fixed asset investment growth.

She said consumer inflation may be warmer last month but factory gate inflation was likely to be cooler.

Chinese entrepreneurs' views on wealth are changing significantly as their fortunes increase, China National Radio reported on Monday, citing a new study.

Some 568 billionaires from greater China made the Hurun Global Rich List released early this year, the highest number from any country in the world and 33 more than the United States with 535. Among them, 470 were from the Chinese mainland, and 100 from Beijing.

A separate survey by the All China Federation of Industry and Commerce showed the total assets of the top 500 Chinese private enterprises increased to 17.3 trillion yuan ($2.6 trillion) in 2015 from 434.6 billion yuan in 2001, an average annual growth of 30 percent. The average asset value of these enterprises increased to 34.6 billion yuan in 2015, from 860 million yuan in 2001.

The latest study, jointly conducted by the Dacheng Enterprise Research Institute and the Social Sciences Academic Press (China) in Beijing, found private entrepreneurs now focus more on the relationship between the interests of the nation, their own and those of their enterprises, attaching greater importance to sustainable growth, competitive edge and contributions to society.

In the past 40 years since China began its reform and opening up, the number of private enterprises has been rising rapidly, bringing increasing fortunes to entrepreneurs.

The study attributed the rapid growth of Chinese private entrepreneurs' fortunes to their utilizing various opportunities with regard to policy, market, resources and business environment. Their actions, on the whole, conformed to laws, regulations and policies of the country, it added.

"Entrepreneurs' money is not their money," said Jack Ma, the founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. "Some people said I was the richest person in China, but I think the 'fu ' in 'shouru' (the richest) actually means the 'fu' in 'fuze' (to take responsibility)." His company's charity activities now cover four fields, including eco-environmental protection as well as health and medical care.

Chen Yongjie, vice president of Dacheng Enterprise Research Institute, said the change in entrepreneurs' views on wealth, together with their charity campaigns, represent an important characteristic of China's economic, social and cultural development for the present and future.

"Chinese entrepreneurs' charitable activities have gradually grown into a trend, which is having and will continue to have a great impact on narrowing the wealth gap and adjusting China's income distribution and social conflicts," said Chen.

The study suggested China improve laws and regulations to allow entrepreneurs to reasonably, intelligently and effectively use and manage their fortunes.

China is determined to put growth quality before pace, but that will not hold the economy back from growing faster than most of other countries in the coming decade, according to experts.

In a report delivered to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the country's leadership called it "a new historic juncture in China's development," as the economy has been transitioning from a phase of rapid growth to a stage of high-quality development.

In the eyes of Chi Fulin, head of the China Institute for Reform and Development, that does not mean the growth rate will be mediocre.

Over the next five to 10 years, China's economy will be able to achieve at least 6 percent of annual growth thanks to improvement in industrial structure, upgrading of consumer spending and progress of urbanization, he said.

In the past five years, the global economy expanded at an average rate of 2.6 percent, while developing economies grew at 4 percent.

China has set 2020 as the target to finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, just one year before the CPC celebrates its 100th anniversary.

Chi estimated that by the end of 2020, China's economic rebalancing will yield eye-propping results.

By then, the value of the country's service sector will increase to about 50 trillion yuan (7.58 trillion U.S. dollars) from 38.4 trillion yuan recorded in 2016. Retail sales of consumer goods will also expand to about 50 trillion yuan from 33 trillion yuan recorded in 2016.

The integrated development of urban and rural areas is expected to generate investment and consumption of nearly 100 trillion yuan, which will be the most remarkable bonus for China's development in the medium to long run, he said.

Over this period, China's contribution to global economic growth would remain at around 30 percent. More than half of its population would become middle-income earners.

"A successful rebalancing of the world's second largest economy would not only upgrade China's economy, but also boost global economic recovery and growth," Chi said.

In the future, China's economic restructuring will be advanced together with opening up, of which the Belt and Road Initiative and the development of service trade and free trade zones will be the focuses, he said.

The IMF recently raised its forecast for China's economic growth in 2017 and 2018 to 6.8 percent and 6.5 percent respectively, both higher than the earlier forecast in July.

For an economy with a total volume of over 11 trillion U.S. dollars, maintaining such high growth is not easy, Chinese Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said.

China's stable economic growth mainly stems from major progress in economic reforms, particularly supply-side structural measures, and the government's ability to maintain a stable macroeconomic policy, he said.

While gains from structural reforms will come with a time lag, they will have a positive impact on China's economic growth in the medium term, said Changyong Rhee, director of the Asia Pacific Department at the IMF, adding China's growth has also provided ample opportunities for Asia to maintain its growth over the last ten years.