Archives December 2009

Survey indicates better job prospect

Wu Liwei, a postgraduate major in journalism from Renmin University of China, has been trying to find a job for some time. And though the 24-year-old is yet to get a satisfactory offer, Wu said yesterday that she still felt lucky and hopeful.

“Next year looks better than even this year,” Wu said. “A friend who majored in the same subject last year said many big companies had stopped recruiting then.”

But this year, staff from a lot more companies, including big names, visited her university for campus recruitment. “I have attended about 10 such recruitment fairs, and many of my classmates have got offers. I am waiting for the right one,” she said.

Most university graduates like Wu feel the same. And it’s true that China’s recruitment prospects are better now than last year or early this year.

Buoyed up by the ongoing economic recovery and domestic consumption, the willingness of potential employers to hire people in 2010 will be stronger than this year, with companies in second-tier cities showing greater interest, a Manpower survey released yesterday said.

According to the survey, conducted by the world’s leading employment service provider, 19 percent of the potential employers said they would hire people in the first quarter of next year – 2 percentage points higher than in the fourth quarter of 2008, and also the highest since late last year.

Those who aim to cease recruitment in the next quarter add up to only 5 percent of the total, 1 percentage point lower than in the previous quarter and the lowest in a year.

Manpower has done such quarterly recruitment studies in China for five years. This time, it interviewed 4,317 enterprises from home and abroad for the survey.

“Actually, the recovery helped improve China’s labor market from the second quarter of this year,” said Danny Yuan, managing director for Manpower China. “Now, employers are more confident of hiring people next year,”

Xu Zhixue, senior consultant with Beijing-based Zuoyou Consulting Group, a leading local human resource service provider, corroborated Yuan.

Zuoyou’s clients are usually big State-owned enterprises (SOEs) in telecom, aerospace and mining sectors, such as Beijing Mobile. “They (SOEs) were worried over the economic trend and most of them had scaled back their recruitment,” Xu said.

“But since the last quarter, they have recovered their confidence. Now, we are much busier than before,” he said.

China’s economy began showing strong signals of recovery in the third quarter of this year, with GDP growth reaching 8.9 percent. Decline in exports began easing off, too, and the sector is expected to have taken to the growth trajectory in late 2009.

According to Manpower, employers in the finance, insurance and real estate sectors could be the biggest recruiters next year, with the mining and construction industries registering the fastest growth in the past quarter.

The survey also shows employers in cities like Chongqing, Xi’an, Qingdao, Wuhan, and Suzhou expect to see a stronger hiring environment than their counterparts in major cities.

Bonus payout continues amid financial woes

With Christmas spending just around the corner and memories of frozen annual bonuses lingering from last year, many companies in Beijing are calming employee concerns with news they will come through with cash regardless of economic woes.

“Though some companies said they won’t pay out a bonus in 2009, the majority said they would pay no matter what the impact on the business was,” said Tommy Li, a senior consultant at Mercer, one of the largest international HR consulting firms operating in China.

Li, who was the product manager for the China Monitor Report, a quarterly survey containing the most updated HR trends in China, said most companies froze or postponed yearly bonuses in 2008 due to the dire global financial situation.

The China Monitor Report, which surveyed over 290 companies, found that more than 69 percent confirmed they would pay yearly bonuses this year despite the global financial crisis. Only 4 percent of companies said they would not.

In addition to the return of year-end bonuses, the China Monitor index found that jobs are on the rise. In the fourth quarter of 2009, over 78 percent of business said they had plans to hire new employees and less than 10 percent said they would downsize.

One sales director of a Beijing-based metals business said that he fears his company will lose employees in the reviving employment market. With the exception of last year, he said he has noticed a trend of employees leaving his company after receiving their yearly bonuses.

“There’s a joke in my office about it. Every year, out of the 15 people that report to me, I lose anywhere from three to five,” he told METRO, requesting that he not be named.

He said employees feel less incentive to stick around after receiving the year-end payout.

Though the company gave out bonuses last year, much to his surprise, he said his salary had been frozen. “This year, with companies starting to hire again, I expect to see a lot of movement. Most people stayed at their jobs last year, grateful just to have a paycheck, but with confidence restored and hiring resuming, I think this year will be different,” he said.

The Accor hotel group on the other hand is taking a different approach to distributing end of the year bonuses.

“The bonuses of our salaried employees engaged in the corporate office are assessed against several criteria – including the performance of the company,” said Robert Murray, Senior Vice President of Greater China for the ACCOR Hotel group.

Murray, who has been working with Accor, a foreign public company listed in France, for more than five years has seen shifts in the market. He said Accor’s system allows employees to share in both the good times and the more “challenging times”, such as the 2009 economic crisis.

“Although it is yet to be determined, it is fair to say that bonuses for this year will be examined in line with results,” Murray said.

He added that employees at the hotels, outside of the corporate office, are usually given bonuses based on individual successes of their hotel.

“There will be mixed outcomes of bonus payments to these employees,” he said.

TCL joint venture headhunting talent from Taiwan panel industry, sources say

The joint venture (JV) of China-based LCD TV vendor TCL and Century Science & Technology Investment Corporation is headhunting talent from Taiwan’s panel industry, according to sources in Taiwan.

TCL is recruiting people from panel makers including AU Optronics (AUO), Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) and Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT), the sources said.

Employees of Taiwan’s panel companies may be more motivated to defect to China competitors now that the local LCD industry is consolidating. Innolux Display is merging with CMO and TPO Displays, leaving minor players, such as CPT, in a more difficult position, the sources from Taiwan’s panel industry commented.

The China government plans to attract LCD panel makers to set up production plants in the country by providing subsidies, the sources claimed. Panel makers will only need to shoulder 10-15% of the total investment, while the government will cover about 30-40%, with the rest coming from outside investors, the sources added.