Archives 2010

Big IT moves more work, jobs to China

BANGALORE: As the Chinese pitter-patter into IT services turns into a loud clatter, Indian majors are pushing hard to grab a bigger slice of that market. TCS, Infosys and Wipro plan to shift at least 10% of their new outsourcing projects to Chinese cities of Dalian and Chengdu, for the first time since India’s software exports industry took note of the Chinese threat a decade ago.

Top customers like GE and General Motors are demanding that Indian vendors deliver some services from locations outside India because of geo-political risks and location redundancy. India’s tech behemoths are also realising that by creating local jobs in China, they can gain a bigger share of the Dragonland’s $10-billion-plus outsourcing market.

While TCS plans to increase its existing 1,200-employee base by over five times in the next few years, Infosys will invest $100 million to build a 4,000-professional-strong team. Wipro, the third-biggest software exporter, will have around 1,000 professionals in a year’s time.

“A clear inflection point for China has been clients’ acceptance over the last few months. And despite some risk perceptions, we are selling Infosys China, and not just China, as a new location to customers,” says SD Shibulal, chief operating officer, Infosys. “Over 80% of the work we do in China is for our global customers,” he added. Testing of software applications, engineering design for automobile and consumer durable firms are among projects set to get increasingly shipped to China.

Clearly, China is no longer a pure rival for India Outsourcing Inc. Instead, it is increasingly helping Indian technology vendors position themselves better by offering a choice of delivery centres beyond India to customers. “It’s no more about being rivals,” says Girija Pande, chairman of TCS’ Asia Pacific operations. “We are now seeing more load that can be sent to China. In fact, we are already doing both IT and BPO projects,” added Pande.

Rising wages, attrition rates and increasing scarcity of employable labour are among the top reasons for this shift in the way Indian IT industry has been looking at China. A September report by Goldman Sachs says Infosys’ revenues from China could top $200 million in three years, from $100 million today. TCS’ China revenues are expected to reach $250 million from almost $100 million currently, the report added.

While bidding for global outsourcing contracts, Indian vendors are beginning to break up a project into pure application development and software testing components. Of these, “non customer-facing portions such as testing is increasingly going to China,” says Amneet Singh, vice-president, global sourcing at consultant Everest Group.

Some clients are also concerned about growing geo-political risks in India because of terrorist threats and delicate equations with neighbours such as Pakistan and China. “We received calls from several customers after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Since then, we have noticed China come up more frequently in our discussions,” said a CEO at one of the top Indian tech firms that has a development centre in Mumbai.

Another inflection point for China’s growing outsourcing industry is the rise of local firms like HiSoft, NeuSoft and VanceInfo. Some like HiSoft are looking at success stories of Infosys and Cognizant and globalising their operations. HiSoft, for one, got listed on Nasdaq in June and has already started getting customers like GE, UBS and Citibank to offshore work to China.

“There’s a growing need from CIOs to diversify and China is positioned as an ideal complement to India,” says Ross Warner, a spokesman for HiSoft, based out of Beijing. The company started working with GE in Japan eight years ago. “It’s no secret that we look up to their (Infosys) journey and are now focussing to replicate some of that,” adds Warner.

“Moreover, MNCs that aspire to sell into China are often requested by the government to purchase from China. This is a factor motivating MNCs like GE, 3M and Nokia to procure to China,” says James Friedman, analyst at SIG.

However, even as China is set to become a $30-billion outsourcing powerhouse in five years, there are hurdles it needs to overcome. While the country produces more engineers than India, lack of experience in handling large, complex projects remains a worry. Plus, China’s wage rates are a higher than India’s because employers have to spend on social security.

“This is a common mistake which is made because in China, one would have to pay 50% tax to the government plus a premium of 10-15% if the person can speak English,” says Frances Karamouzis, research veep at Gartner.

Foreign companies increasing jobs in U.S., Europe

Companies in growing markets like China and India are adding more jobs in North America and Europe, a shift from the usual hiring patterns, says a new study from IBM.

Out today, IBM’s new “Working Beyond Borders” study found that growth in jobs is now moving two ways–from emerging economies tapping into more mature markets as well as the more traditional reverse pattern.

The reason for the trend? As more companies expand globally, they’re hiring people with the creativity, flexibility, and speed needed to help their expansion, prompting them to increase their staffing in North America, Western Europe, and other mature markets.

Specifically, IBM found that 45 percent of companies in India plan to increase their headcount in North America, while 44 percent will expand in Western Europe. And 33 percent of businesses in China are looking to add staff in North America, while 14 percent will boost headcount in Western Europe.

“The silver lining of globalization is that the shift toward expansion will require companies to redirect their workforce to locations that provide the greatest opportunities, not just the lowest costs, and at the same time, re-imagine their management strategies to reflect an increasingly dynamic workforce,” Denis Brousseau, vice president of organization and people for IBM Global Business Services, said in a statement.

Despite this recent trend, much of the increase in hiring over the next three years will still happen in emerging growth regions, such as China, India, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Whichever direction it goes, this new global focus on job growth will force companies to rethink how they attract and manage workers from around the world, according to IBM.
(Credit: IBM)

Beyond the shift in hiring trends, companies are finding that employees with certain “soft” skills, such as social networking and collaboration, can benefit their bottom line. The study showed that companies that outperform financially are 57 percent more likely than underperformers to use social networking and collaboration tools to help their global staff work together more effectively.
To compile its results, IBM interviewed more than 700 chief human resource officers and other senior executives, almost all of them face-to-face, across 61 countries and 32 different industries.

Concern over China’s ‘job-hoppers’

Fund managers in China are switching jobs too frequently. That has led to concerns about the asset management companies’ ability to retain key portfolio personnel and ultimately deliver performance.

Around 148 fund managers have switched or quit their jobs so far this year compared with 85 people in the same period last year, according to Wind Info, a Shanghai-based financial data provider.

Wind Info says only three fund managers in China have more than 10 years of experience in the same company.

“In the US, the average working life for a fund manager is 4.8 to 4.9 years. In China, it is only 1.68 years,” says Vivian Lee, a fund researcher of Galaxy Securities in Beijing.

More and more fund managers are moving from public to private funds. One recent example is Mo Tai Shan. Last week, the ex-general manager of the Bank of Communications Schroder Fund Management moved to Chongyang Investment Management, the largest private hedge fund in China.

Public funds in China target retail investors in the same way that mutual funds do elsewhere. Private funds, meanwhile, target wealthy or institutional investors with a higher investment and risk threshold.

Fund managers are in short supply, so it is common for one manager to run more than one fund. For instance, Lu Zhigang, the former fund manager of Yin Hua Fund Management, controlled three fund products before he left the company this month.

“Here is the regular pattern: fund companies first post recruitment announcements, then the fund managers’ leaving announcements are likely to follow,” says a source from the marketing department of a fund house in Shanghai.

There are several reasons for the high turnover of fund managers in China.

First, the unsophisticated assessment system and poor incentive structure of public funds has made it challenging to retain managers. Many fund houses use the ranking of funds as a big indicator to judge a manager’s performance. However, this is not in line with the concept of “value investment” they put forward. Some fund companies even attempt to draw investors’ attention to new managers in the hope this will increase sales.

“Everything is based on the fund rankings here,” says a source from a fund house in Shanghai. “Investors select funds by their rankings and fund houses judge your [fund manager] performance also by the rankings. We do need a benchmark for comparing the performance of different funds, not just merely relying on the rate of return.”

Second, public fund managers have less investment flexibility, being subject to restrictions such as position limits and on asset allocation. “Fund managers want to be free from these restrictions,” says Jonathan Ha, director for advisory service at Shanghai-based consulting firm Z-Ben Advisors. He adds that good incentives and compensation from private fund houses are attractive to fund managers.

Third, poor portfolio performance forces fund managers to resign. According to Wind Info, by the end of May this year, the average growth rate of the 350 equities funds that it tracks in China was -12.72 per cent, with 54 funds down more than 20 per cent and only 12 funds turning in a profit.

To solve the problem of this high turnover, more and more fund companies tend to apply a “two fund manager” system, which means having one “old” or existing manager plus a new manager. This is also what The China Securities Regulatory Commission expects funds to do, according to analysts.

Wen Qun, an analyst at TX Investment Consulting in Beijing, says the problem will not be solved in the short term. “The fund industry in China has been developing quickly in recent years. It is inevitable the fund houses will face staff shortages,” says Mr Wen.

By Glori Ye

China Imports Pharmaceutical Professionals

By Connie Johnson Hambley

Bingbing Feng and Chip Carnathan have a lot in common. Both men are pharmaceutical professionals with doctorates from U.S. universities, multiple years of experience with American biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, and families in the U.S. Each thinks his best career move would be to work in China next.

The pharmaceutical and drug-development business is changing globally, with unavoidable effects on the lives of professionals. The past three years have seen big pharmaceutical companies laying off tens of thousands of highly educated, trained scientists and the U.S. is not creating jobs fast enough to absorb the talent. In tandem with this decline has been an intense push by China to create companies and jobs in the life science sector. As more work is outsourced to China, less is performed in the U.S. Being jobless in the U.S. for a year or more is not uncommon, so China is poised to be the largest beneficiary of a global talent shift.

In 2007 the report “Globalization of Innovation: Pharmaceuticals,” co-authored by Vivek Wadhwa, a senior research associate at Harvard Law School, noted that 5 of the world’s top 10 pharmaceutical companies were based in the U.S., although the country’s standing was threatened. “Cost pressures, the need to tap global talent, and growth opportunities in emerging markets have prompted Western pharmaceutical companies to shift substantial manufacturing and clinical-trial work to India and China,” the report stated. “Increasingly these companies are turning to Asia to broaden the range of new drug candidates.”

The intellectual processes of innovation and creativity, often called scientific rigor, hold the key to pharmaceutical success. After scientists present research to peers and superiors, a dynamic dialogue questions and critiques the work, requiring the scientists to push back with rebuttals. Such vigorous sessions are the hallmark of Western research and development culture. Scientists trained to “push back” are in demand — just not so much in the U.S. According to the National Science Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators, U.S. institutions granted 41,000 science and engineering PhDs in 2007, a third of them to foreign students. The SEI report notes that “recent growth in R&D expenditures has been most dramatic in China, averaging just above 19 percent annually in inflation-adjusted dollars over the past decade,” compared with just a 3.3 percent increase in the U.S.

People who were born abroad, obtain educational and work experience in the U.S., and then go back to their homelands are referred to as “returnees.” “Availability of talent and human capital continues to be a significant concern” to expanding companies, stated the globalization report. While Indian and Chinese returnees are “available today in greater numbers than in years past, many [local] pharmaceutical employees have limited experience with drug-discovery culture.”

“In China it’s harder for people to express themselves voluntarily. They are trained from elementary school to compete for No. 1 so that no one can beat you,” says Mei-Shu Shih, a returnee who serves as chief scientific officer of PharmaLegacy Laboratories, a contract research organization based in Shanghai. “In the United States the mentality in the corporations is to push for scientists to be team players.” Shih says that once team spirit is cultivated in a group of native Chinese scientists, they open up and become “quite brilliant.” Still, he notes, a cultural reticence to speak up can be difficult to overcome.
The push for Western-trained scientists has begun. Cliff Hegan, managing director of Fitco-Consulting, an executive recruiting firm based in Shanghai and Singapore, says that “Western research-and-discovery technology is more scientifically advanced. Chinese-trained scientists are more application-centered and therefore less technically advanced and innovative in their thinking.” Pharmaceutical companies want U.S. trained managers because of their entrepreneurial spirit and creative problem solving skills, in contrast to the more linear, pragmatic, approach of their Asian counterparts. The cultural divide is creating opportunities.

Language is typically not a barrier for a Western scientist seeking to enter the Chinese job market, especially at senior levels. Companies are often willing to provide Mandarin tutors to ease the transition. And because most senior and middle managers in China received essential scientific training in the U.S., they tend to speak English, with young PhDs surprisingly fluent. “Most scientists are surprised when they walk into a lab in Beijing and sit down and interact with a team. Often they see former colleagues and it feels quite like a biotech in Cambridge,” where easily 25 percent of the scientists are Chinese, says John Oyler, a serial entrepreneur and graduate of MIT and Stanford who is starting a cancer research company in Beijing. “It is early here and there is still room for many more talented, Western-trained, research-and-discovery professionals in Beijing.”

Oyler moved to Beijing in 2005 to start BioDuro, a contract research organization that was sold to Pharmaceutical Product Development, a leading global research contractor focused on drug discovery, development, and life-cycle-management services in 2009. “Most people thought I was crazy to move to China. But the move was obvious,” he said. “There are top academic institutions here — unequalled by any city other than Boston — talented and hardworking professionals with great minds, and deep financial support from the Beijing government.” Oyler says it was easy to create a vibrant life because of the energy and close-knit nature of the industry in China.

Some companies prefer candidates fluent in both languages and familiar with both cultures. Bingbing Feng exemplifies this point. “A returnee brings knowledge and experience that a local Chinese does not,” he says. Born and raised in Beijing, Feng moved to the U.S. at 22 to continue his scientific education. He received his doctorate from Purdue in 1997 and then worked in Pennsylvania for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). “The expectations are much higher for a returnee,” he said. “We are expected to bring more to our job and deliver more than a local Chinese.” Open to working in the U.S. or China, Feng says China offers “more opportunities as it’s building up the industry.”

Dr. Jisong Cui, director at Merck Research Laboratories and president of the Sino-American Pharmaceutical Professionals Assn., admits that heritage is coaxing some of her friends back to Asia. Most return, she says, because they consider the career options to be better in China. Since her organization was created in 1993, in part to promote scientific exchange between the U.S. and China, SAPA has grown to more than 4,000 members. Cui estimates that 1,000 U.S.-based members have already returned to China. Indeed, Merck is moving its external research and clinical services work to China to take advantage of current trends.

Carnathan, who has worked in drug development and global regulatory affairs, says he would tell his sons to “jump at the chance to work in China” and would himself follow that advice if he were to receive an offer there. “China is the next wave of business innovation and growth and to be there at the beginning of the upswing is even better,” Carnathan says.

Innovation Shifted To China During The Downturn: U.N. Report

It’s an unfortunate fact of a downturn: declining corporate cash flows and slumping confidence usually induce firms to file fewer patents and slash spending on research and development.

Apparently, China didn’t get the memo.

As much of the world invested fewer resources in innovation during the global downturn, Chinese firms spent more on innovative efforts, such as R&D and patent and trademark applications, according to a report by a UN agency.

On Wednesday, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said that patent applications in China jumped 18.2 percent in 2008 and another 8.5 percent in 2009. Over the same period, ZTE, China’s second-largest telecom equipment maker, boosted R&D spending 44.8 percent.

In the U.S., patent filings fell 11.7 percent in 2008 and 2009, while companies like General Motors, Hewlett Packard and Microsoft slashed their R&D budget by more than 20 percent from 2008 to 2009. In Europe and Japan new patent filings dropped 7.9 and 10.8 percent, respectively, in 2009.

“China is moving up the value chain and rapidly increasing exports based on domestic innovation, so inevitably it is filing an ever-growing number of patent applications,” WIPO’s Chief told a news conference as the agency announced its latest findings.

China decided years back that it no longer wants to be the sweatshop of the world. The country’s recent investments in innovation at a time when loans and venture capital were sparse reflect its ambitions to become an innovation-oriented nation by 2020.

China’s penchant for patents may partly explain why it’s shifting away from low-cost manufacturing, as the New York Times reports this morning.

Dell May Spend More Than $100 Billion to Widen China Operations

Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) — Dell Inc. plans to spend more than $100 billion over 10 years to broaden operations in China and capture more sales in the world’s second-largest economy.

The company will open a second China operations center next year in Chengdu, adding production, sales and support in the western part of the country. It will also add an office and as many as 500 workers at its existing Xiamen site, the Round Rock, Texas-based company said in a statement.

Last year’s sales increased in the Asia-Pacific region for Dell at a faster pace than other parts of the world. Still, the company got only 12 percent in its business revenue last year from Asia-Pacific, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The manufacturing and customer support center in Chengdu will begin operations in 2011 and may eventually employ 3,000 people, the company said. It didn’t elaborate on how it intends to spend the $100 billion.

Dell fell 3 cents to $12.27 at 12:08 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares had fallen 14 percent this year before today.

Dell said it’s the No. 2 supplier of PCs in China and that it posted a 52 percent revenue increase in its most recent fiscal quarter.

Citigroup to Hire up to 7,500 in China: Report

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Citigroup Inc plans to almost triple its workforce in China by hiring up to 7,500 people in the next three years, an executive told Bloomberg in an interview published on Tuesday.

Citigroup, which has 4,500 employees in China, will hire more in that country that in any other Asia-Pacific market, according to Bloomberg’s interview with Stephen Bird, Citigroup’s co-chief executive officer for the region.

The hiring plans will support Citigroup’s efforts to expand in the region and compete with HSBC Holdings PLC and Standard Chartered PLC .

Bird told Reuters last week that Citigroup planned to open two branches a month on average in China for the foreseeable future, the maximum allowed by regulators.

The company’s strategy “is progressively more weighted to emerging markets,” Bird told Reuters. “Greater China is the future.”

Citigroup plans to double its number of branches in Hong Kong to 50 by the end of the year and increase the number of branches on the mainland to 38 by the end of the year, from 29 currently.

A Citigroup spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. The company’s shares were trading up less than one percent, at $3.70, by mid-afternoon.

Strongest hiring plans forecast by employers in China, Taiwan, India and Brazil; U.S. employers report cautiously optimistic job prospects

According to the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey results released today by Manpower Inc. (NYSE: MAN), hiring expectations in emerging markets — China, Taiwan, India and Brazil — continue to outpace the rest of the world. Meanwhile, employer hiring confidence in European countries is mixed with positive job prospects reported in Germany for the quarter ahead. And although hiring plans in the U.S. are stronger compared to one year ago, the cautiously optimistic hiring pace reported for the next three months indicates economic concerns continue to weigh on the minds of American employers.

“We’re seeing a multi-speed recovery in the global labor market with talent demand in high gear in many of the emerging markets we survey. Other markets, such as the U.S. and Japan, are still moving forward but can’t seem to get out of first gear,” said Jeffrey A. Joerres, Chairman and CEO of Manpower Inc. “Employers in many markets continue to struggle with inconsistent demand for their products and services making it difficult to anticipate staff needs. As a result, a flexible workforce strategy will be critical during this point of the recovery cycle.”

The Manpower data shows employers in 28 of 36 countries and territories expect positive hiring activity in the fourth quarter, with those in five reporting negative hiring expectations — an improvement in comparison to the 12 countries reporting negative outlooks 12 months ago. Globally, employers in 32 countries and territories are reporting stronger year-over-year outlooks, with those in China, Taiwan, India and Brazil indicating the strongest fourth-quarter job prospects. Notably, forecasts from Chinese, Swiss and Taiwanese employers are the most optimistic since Manpower began polling there. The weakest hiring plans for the upcoming quarter are reported in Greece, Italy, the Czech Republic, Spain and Ireland.

Across the Asia Pacific region, year-over-year forecasts improve in each of the eight countries and territories surveyed, with forecasts improving from the third quarter in three. Hiring plans in the region are strongest in China, Taiwan and India. Meanwhile, employer hiring plans in Japan are the most conservative in the region, but they are considerably stronger compared to one year ago.

“Continued strong domestic growth is fueling stronger job prospects in all industry sectors in China and Taiwan from three months ago. As a result, the talent wars are waging again as companies struggle to retain the talent they need,” said Joerres. “In contrast, Indian employers expect to ease the pace of hiring slightly. Interestingly, our data reveals a bright spot in the Japanese Manufacturing sector, where hiring expectations have improved for six consecutive quarters and are the strongest in two years.”

Similar to the third quarter, fourth-quarter hiring expectations remain mixed in the 18 countries surveyed in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. Employers are reporting positive Net Employment Outlooks in 10 countries, but those in 11 expect the pace of hiring to soften from three months ago. However, the year-over-year comparison is more positive with improved Outlooks reported in 15 of 18 countries. Hiring activity in the region is expected to be strongest in Switzerland, Norway and Poland and weakest in Greece and Italy.

“European labor markets have yet to gain real traction due in part to the uncertainty in Greece and Italy. But we are seeing notable improvements across the region in the Finance and Business Services sector, where year-over-year forecasts improve in 15 countries, most notably in Switzerland, Germany and Norway,” said Joerres. “The German labor market continues to be resilient; however lack of talent, especially engineers, healthcare professionals and sales staff, is becoming a real issue for employers in many sectors.”

Across the 10 countries surveyed in the Americas region, employers anticipate varying degrees of positive hiring activity. Outlooks improve in six countries from three months ago, but improve in all countries when year-over-year comparisons are made. Regional hiring plans are again strongest in Brazil, Peru and Costa Rica and weakest in the U.S., where hiring plans are relatively stable from three months ago but are notably stronger than those reported one year ago.

“Hiring confidence has returned to the majority of the region with employers in Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Panama and Colombia reporting their most optimistic plans of the year,” said Joerres. “Brazilian employers in the Services sector continue to create jobs at a rapid pace and in many industry sectors wage arbitrage is becoming an issue for both professional and skilled trades roles. Meanwhile, in the U.S. most of the hiring that was done in the third quarter will be absorbed, yet negative outlooks are reported for just two sectors — Construction and Government. U.S. job seekers can expect to find the most opportunities in the Wholesale & Retail Trade and Mining sectors in the quarter ahead.”

Expatriates Working in China with Criminal Records

By Chris Devonshire-Ellis and Richard Hoffmann

Aug. 27 – A recurring theme over the past two years for expatriates wanting to be based in China is the subject of possessing a criminal record. These may of course be for relatively minor offenses; however China’s policy in this regard can be strict.

A standard requirement (although it is not always requested) for expatriates looking to work in China is for a “Certificate of No Criminal Record” to be provided when applying for a work permit. This is a particularly strict requirement in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, though less so in Beijing and Tianjin. Providing this certificate means having to go to your local police station in your home country and obtaining one. Different countries have different systems for providing such a document, and some smaller countries can even issue this from their embassy in Beijing. For most expatriates seeking employment in China, however, this needs to be obtained from their local police authority in their home country.

The same also applies to having a criminal record in China. However, criminal records are not usually recorded in China on a national basis. Therefore, it may be possible if in possession of a criminal record in China – if the authorities have not already deported you – to apply successfully for such a work permit in a different region of China. The best advice is of course to not commit criminal acts in China. You risk your job, simple as that.

A little known aspect of China’s laws also criminalizes debts of over RMB10,000. That means that if a foreign invested company has become insolvent or bankrupt, unless the debts, including all staff obligations, taxes due and so on are met by the parent company, expatriates simply walking away from the situation risk being found guilty in absentia. This is of particular pertinence to the chief representative or legally responsible person. In these positions, the title means exactly what it says – responsible for the activities of the company, including its debts.

People can be incarcerated for long periods over debts incurred by their company in China. Returning to China knowing that you have such a background then is unwise. Expatriates’ personal data is now shared on a national basis, and even if one manages to apply for a work permit in a different city, a sharp-eyed clerk somewhere may mean a knock on the door sometime later.

The lesson for all expatriates in China is to pay your debts, and keep out of trouble. You may not get a second chance.

Foreign-invested companies in China facing significant problems in which closure becomes necessary must take the appropriate actions when doing so. Leaving China with unauthorized debt places you at significant future risk should you wish to later re-enter the China market. It is far better to negotiate with creditors than face prosecution. Most of the obligations under such circumstances can be dealt with through negotiation, and require the provision for creditors meetings. Although unpleasant, these do allow for the company to state its position firmly, abide by the rules, and decrease the amount of outstanding debt. While creditors can usually be dealt with, staff and any outstanding tax matters do need to be settled. The procedure for closure also requires an audit.

We have recently provided update advice and the procedural structure on this subject, please see the China Briefing issue “Closing Representative Offices and Liquidating Businesses in China” for more information.

Chris Devonshire-Ellis is the principal of Dezan Shira & Associates. Richard Hoffmann is a senior legal associate with the firm and is responsible for issues relating to expatriate employment and human resource legal and administrative matters in China. If you have queries about obtaining work permits in China, please contact Richard at legal@dezshira.com. Businesses requiring advice on liquidation procedures and related matters may contact Sabrina Zhang, national tax partner for the firm, in strict confidence at tax@dezshira.com.

China Bans Foreign Firms Hiring Labors in China to Work Abroad

By Bloomberg News

Aug. 23 (Bloomberg) — China will crack down on foreign companies directly recruiting and hiring workers in China to do manual labor overseas, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a joint statement posted to the commerce ministry’s website today.

The government will also stop Chinese companies from sending labors from the nation to work overseas for foreign individuals, according to the statement. China will also strictly control the sending of Chinese labors to work in overseas nations where conditioners are worse than those domestically and where risks are high, according to the statement.