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Geely’s Volvo says to hire 1,200 new staff

STOCKHOLM: Volvo Cars, owned by China’s Geely, said on Tuesday it planned to hire 1,200 new employees in Sweden and Belgium as it invests to meet new global demand.

Volvo Chief Executive Stefan Jacoby said the carmaker expected to sell “significantly more cars in 2011” compared with the previous year and that it had seen good demand in the past month in the United States, Europe and also China.

Demand in Japan also remained surprisingly strong, he said. “We are investing in our future. There is no free ticket for a bright future,” Jacoby said, adding that the firm was also investing in capacity at its plants.

The carmaker has said it plans to invest up to $11 billion in new product development and facilities over the next 5 years.

Geely, parent of Geely Automobile Holdings, took over Ford Motor’s Volvo car unit in August 2010, in China’s largest acquisition of a foreign car maker.

China?s HR Market: How Much Are Your Employees Worth?

Mar. 16 ? While 10 years ago, China?s low-cost labor force was one of the major drivers pushing foreign manufacturers to choose the emerging nation as their production base, nowadays China?s human resource (HR) market is witnessing significant changes alongside its developing industrial landscape. But while it is widely recognized that hiring is becoming more expensive across the country ? especially in some industries and in major coastal cities like Shanghai – it should also be noted that the overall HR market is becoming more mature for employers.

More expensive hiring

According to the latest statistics released by Robert Walters in its 2011 China Salary Survey, recruitment activity increased in the first half of 2010 and peaked between April and June as the Chinese economy quickly recovered from the Global Financial Crisis amid strong market conditions. The survey predicts that in 2011, salary rises are likely to be around 10 percent across various industries, while top-tier candidates may command approximate 15 percent to 30 percent increases in their compensation.

The size of a company?s hiring budget is closely related to China?s policy alterations and economic development focus. Furthermore, a strong demand for information technology (IT) advancement, encouragement in merger and acquisition (M&A) activities, prosperity in consumer markets, and China?s attempts to further open up its financial sector mean that businesses in the fields of financial services, accounting, IT, sales and marketing may need to prepare bigger paychecks for their employees.

Shanghai: an increasingly mature HR market

Zhang Sheng, the Commerce Finance Division manager of Robert Walters, describes Shanghai as the third most mature hiring market in Asia among commerce-centered cities, following Hong Kong and Singapore. As Shanghai gains growing global presence and is ready to accommodate headquarters of international businesses, employers will be impressed to find out there is a significant number of candidates available with both local and international experience that make them completely qualified as being ?decision makers? instead of ?command followers.?

Professionals with local experience in the Shanghai market are of much value for employers who look to set up their business in Shanghai, since many of them have grown and learned with China?s rapid development and reforms in the past decade. The distinct development stages China has gone through in such a short period has enabled them to master a much wider span of business knowledge than those working in a country with relatively stable development.

The Shanghai HR market?s maturity also resides in its mounting diversity and comprehensiveness.

?You can find professionals at all levels to meet your demands in the city,? Zhang emphasized.

The overall national infrastructure development has not only made it easier for companies that want to take advantage of the lower cost in China?s inland cities to relocate their manufacturing bases and build up a national supply chain, but it also makes it more possible for those employers to hire people who are willing to relocate. The changing attitude to relocation means a senior manager can stay with a company longer, have a better understanding of the company?s periodical strategies, and thus become more qualified for participating in long-term decision-making.

The staff loyalty mystery

While loyalty is supposed to be highly valued in the Chinese culture, staff loyalty is becoming more and more of a mystery for many employers. On one hand, with a massive HR supply, the competition in China?s job market is fierce; on the other hand, companies still often find it difficult to maintain a comparatively stable staff since many employees hop from one job to another frequently for better opportunities or pay.

Zhang believes that low staff loyalty has something to do with China?s growth pattern. The country?s fast shifts in development focus has led to professional shortages in some fields. For example, While China?s M&A market just started booming two years ago, the supply of professional accountants that can help complete compliance processes failed to meet the surging demand, because it definitely takes longer than two years for an accountant to grow mature and competent enough for those positions. The imbalanced supply-demand relationship resulted in companies bidding for the limited amount of professionals, and finally facilitated the phenomenon of ?job changers.?

In order to maintain valuable employees, companies may need to take a closer look at China?s policy trends to receive a better understanding of when is the best time to offer employees more incentives. A universal 30 percent post-financial crisis salary increase in many companies that cut redundancy during the crisis is a good example showing how those employers perceive the ever-changing HR market conditions during different periods.

China spending big for skilled labor, recruiters say

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) ? Headhunters recruiting in China say they?ve rarely seen busier times.

Domestic and multinational companies seeking to bolster staff as part of bold expansion plans in the Chinese market have sparked frenzied bidding to attract qualified personnel across a broad ranges of industries, recruitment experts say.

Candidates with the right level of education and skills are typically seeing inducement offers that include salary increases of 40% to 50%, in addition to enhanced responsibility.

?I think China is the hardest place right now to secure talent and to retain talent,? said Christine Greybe, president of recruitment firm DHR International in Hong Kong.

She estimates that about 30% of candidates who plan on leaving their companies receive counteroffers which match or even exceed the rival offer, as companies grow wary of the loss of personnel through poaching.

?A lot of attention is going towards finding ways to keep talent, which is very unusual to anything we saw before,? Greybe said.

The hiring drive reflects ambitious plans among multinationals to secure opportunities in China. In some cases, companies are seeking to double or even triple managerial staff within a few years, cramming growth that would normally happen in a 10-year window, experts say.

?There?s been a redoubling of growth imperative of by multinationals trying to head into Asia, because companies are finding it hard to grow in the U.S. and Europe,? said Mike Game, the Hong Kong-based Asia chief executive officer for multinational recruitment company Hudson.
China growing its state media

China’s state media are expanding aggressively to compete with private Internet companies.

Mainland Chinese companies are also offering more competitive wages for their senior executives, shrinking what?s been traditionally a gap with compensation packages offered by multinationals.

In some cases, Chinese companies are now paying salaries and packages that meet or beat those offered by Western companies, says Greybe, adding executives in technology companies ? such as Chinese Internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. /quotes/comstock/22h!e:700 (HK:700 218.20, -6.00, -2.68%) /quotes/comstock/11i!tctzf (TCTZF 28.94, +0.09, +0.31%) ? look more to stock options and other forms of compensation outside of salaries.
The place to be

?China is the place people want to be. They are not interested in a job in the U.S. in the way they may have been two or three years ago,? Greybe said, referring to China-born professionals.

Chinese companies accounted for 54 of those in the Fortune 500 list in 2010, up from 35 in 2008.

Greybe said that some clients take the view that careers spent at home could pay bigger dividends, given China?s rising status in the global economy.

In fact, leading Chinese firms are now more sought after than multinationals among mainland engineering graduates born between 1980 and 1990, according data compiled by recruitment company AonHewitt.

The jobs squeeze is also spilling over to service-center hubs outside mainland China, including Hong Kong and Singapore.

Lawyers with the right educational profile and job experience can expect to receive a half dozen offers within a few weeks, said Denvy Lo, a senior consultant with legal recruitment specialists Laurence Simons.

It?s fairly standard to expect pay rises of 30% to 40% when jumping firms, she said, adding that the frenzied recruiting conditions are reminiscent of the boom times of 2007.

?They will look around to see who can offer them the most and the best package,? Lo said.

Among those most in demand are China-born candidates who completed law degrees in the U.S. and have a few years? experience with multinational companies in Asia, Lo said.

China Employment Outlook: Boom or Bust?

The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey results for China were just released, with the data coming in a little worse than the previous two quarters, but strong compared to recent years. Net hiring intentions fell to 29% from 38% in Q1 this year, and a high of 51% in Q4 last year.

Chinese employers forecast an active labor market in Quarter 2 2011. While 34% of employers expect to increase staffing levels, 5% predict a decrease and 53% anticipate no change. The resulting Net Employment Outlook stands at +29%.

In short, though, the results are actually quite positive. Looking at the chart below, China is actually in the midst of a hiring boom. Compared to Q2 2010, much of its recent history hiring intentions for the second quarter of 2011 are still pretty strong. It’s no wonder, then, that you hear stories about rising wages in China, or labor shortages. And it’s this surge in employment that is creating an interesting set of threats and opportunities for the Chinese economy.

Looking at it on a sector-by-sector basis, the clear leader is Manufacturing, with a net 31% of firms looking to increase staff. The manufacturing sector also saw the smallest decrease compared to Q1 (down by only a couple of percentage points). Another strong sector is Finance, Insurance & Real Estate — which is interesting with the backdrop of a booming property market — with 10 million units of social housing set to be built this year.

Another strong sector is Services, with a net 28% of firms planning to hire; also interesting from an economic rebalancing angle. In other words, it is interesting to see sectors like Services, Wholesale & Retail Trade, and Finance doing well, as growth in these sectors will help China rebalance its economy to being domestic demand-led, rather than export-oriented.

So what is the overall synopsis? In terms of employment outlook, the answer is still “boom.” Net hiring intentions show firms still need to hire more workers, which can be driven by a number of things, but is usually motivated by growth of the business and a need to increase capacity. It’s this lack of spare capacity that is also contributing to higher inflation. Indeed, a key driver of inflation in China this year will not just be commodities, but also rising wage inflation.

This creates an interesting dilemma for the Chinese government: On the one hand it needs to stave off high levels of inflation to avoid instability and maintain a sustainable rate of growth; on the other hand, rising wages may also be a key catalyst in helping rebalance the Chinese economy and growing domestic demand, instead of relying on a low-cost export-oriented model. And of course there is the tension of reducing inflation, but without stalling the economy.

In short, the survey results suggest that the Chinese economy is still going strong, and is likely to continue to grow at a strong pace this year as domestic demand rises and government spending continues (the government plans to run a deficit this year). However, the inflation risks are highlighted and accentuated by this data point.

So it remains to be seen how the inflation battle unfolds. But as long as the fundamentals remain intact, it’s almost a certainty that buying opportunities will be present, especially if valuations overshoot in reaction to monetary policy tightening.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

LinkedIn Blocked In China, Then Unblocked

LinkedIn became accessible again inside China early Friday evening after the business networking site had been blocked Thursday ? was this a technical glitch, or is this part of an ongoing adjustment to the Great Firewall? Chinese authorities never explicitly verify intentional maneuvers individually, but they have been intensely vigilant of Web 2.0 services since their inception, and every other foreign social media site that leads its market is already blocked, including Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Foursquare.

What would be the reason to block LinkedIn? The Great Firewall has never issued a press release, but the answer is usually obvious. What may do in LinkedIn (if the block rematerializes) is the ?Jasmine Revolution,? which so far has been not a protest movement but an occasion to display the reach of China?s security apparatus and the limits placed on China?s Internet. Self-described organizers say the attempts to protest will continue with weekly Sunday strolls in cities around China.

If LinkedIn has committed a Web 2.0 crime in China?s eyes, there are a couple possibilities: the most likely issue, given Beijing?s desire to quash organizing of any form, is that there have been attempts by Jasmine organizers to reach out to others over LinkedIn, thus spreading the word via LinkedIn invitations; another issue, raised by Techrice, is the built-in ability to post to Twitter via LinkedIn, getting around the Great Firewall without the need for circumvention tools. As Techrice notes, ?being the easiest way to tweet is a lousy government relations strategy in China.?

Sensitive events are almost always the catalyst for these blocks, and though initial blocks are often temporary (as was the case with Facebook and Twitter in the past), once you are on China?s ?do not connect? list, it is hard to get off. Youtube has been blocked since the Tibet riots of March 2008; Facebook and Twitter were each blocked permanently after the Xinjiang riots of July 2009; and location-based service Foursquare has been blocked since users tried to ?check in? en masse to Tiananmen Square last year on the June 4 anniversary of the 1989 massacre of protestors.

Chinese clones of these services naturally benefit from each of these Great Firewall ?upgrades.? Youku.com, the leading online video site, IPO?d in December and is valued on the New York Stock Exchange at $3.8 billion. Renren, the leading Facebook of China with 160 million users, is expected soon to raise $500 million in a U.S. IPO. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg is clearly trying to get Facebook back into China, perhaps through a joint venture with a trusted Chinese company like Baidu.

Sina Corp.?s Weibo, the dominant Chinese Twitter-like service, launched in August 2009, a month after Twitter was blocked, and is likely approaching 100 million users. Analysts disagree widely on Weibo?s value, in part due to worries about whether Beijing would shut down or severely curtail the service, but guesses range from as low as $1.5 billion to as high as $3 billion. And there is no shortage of Chinese versions of Foursquare ? including Dianping, Jiepang and a check-in service on Renren ? but you can bet none of them will be allowing users to ?check in? to the Jasmine Revolution, much less Tiananmen Square on June 4 every year.

Who will gain if LinkedIn does get blocked? (LinkedIn, as Techrice noted, did not have a Chinese-language interface, was not a huge player in the China market to begin with, and should not feel ill effects if it ends up being blocked as it looks toward an IPO). No company has yet to become ?the LinkedIn of China,? but one widely cited contender is ushi.cn. One more candidate to watch for, reports Techrice, is Jingwei, a sister company of Renren that is in beta-testing.

SEEK profit up 31% as China Zhaopin swings to profit

SEEK Limited (ASX:SEK) grew its 1H profit 31% to $36.6 million, as a result of strong domestic growth and its Chinese venture Zhaopin swinging to profitability.

The company, which operates the employment website SEEK.com.au, reported a 22% year-on-year increase in revenue to $130.3 million. Ebitda grew 12% to $55.8 million.

The company’s employment business in Australia and New Zealand recorded revenue of $106.8 million and ebitda of $62.8 million, up 36% and 55% respectively.

SEEK’s outgoing joint CEO, Paul Bassat said the results reflect the ongoing migration of employment advertising from print to online. ?As employment markets have improved, growth in online job ads has significantly outpaced growth in print job ads,? he said.

He pointed to ANZ research which shows that online currently captures some 82% of all job ads.

SEEK’s Zhaopin joint venture, in which it owns a 56.1% stake, moved to profitability during the period, achieving a positive ebitda in each month.

But its SEEK Education businesses ? SEEK Learning, THINK and IDP ? had a challenging six months, Bassat said.

SEK shares fell 11.74% during Tuesday’s trading to $6.240.

SEEK on Tuesday also announced that Paul Bassat’s brother, Andrew Bassat has signed a contract to become the company’s sole CEO until at least 2013.

Most companies in China to hike wages in ’11: Survey

About three quarters of companies operating in China expect to increase wages by over 5% in 2011, a survey by British recruitment firm showed on Wednesday.

The finding comes amid a boom in China’s middle class, a result of the country’s economic success, and highlights the high inflationary pressures in the pipeline as well as rising costs faced by many companies.

Most companies in China to hike wages in ’11: Survey

Chinese employees “are now in a stronger position than they were previously. They have a much better understanding of their worth in the market place and are aware of their bargaining power,” said Nigel Heap, managing director of Hays Asia Pacific.

The annual salary survey of more than 5,000 employers based in Shanghai and Beijing showed more than half expect to increase salaries between 6-10% over the next 12 months while a third intend to hike them by more than 10%.

Wage inflation is being propelled by fast economic growth in smaller or so-called tier-two cities, which has given hundreds of millions of migrant workers the option to return home where the cost of living is cheaper, Heap said.

Labour demand has risen significantly in tier-two cities following massive investments by the government in the past two years to develop inland areas, he said.

Rising wages put pressure on inflation although that is being compensated for by even faster gains in productivity for now. Data showed on Tuesday core inflation, stripped of volatile food prices, jumped to its highest in at least a decade in January.

Still, the Chinese government is encouraging wage hikes as it wants to boost consumer spending and reduce the economy’s reliance on exports.

In January, the city of Beijing raised the minimum wage by 21% while Shanghai’s mayor has said he plans to raise it by more than 10% this year given the fast pace of development and soaring food prices.

Guangdong province, the mainland’s manufacturing hub, will reportedly raise its minimum wage by an average 18.6% from March.

Multinationals operating in China such as Yum Brands Inc have already seen commodity-induced cost inflation eat into their profit margins.

The owner of the KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell fast-food chains forecast this month rising 2011 labour and food costs in China and said that modestly raising prices in its top growth market would help mitigate that pressure.

Pre-Employment Exams in China Banned from Conducting Hepatitis B Tests Read more: Pre-Employment Exams in China Banned from Conducting Hepatitis B Tests http://www.medindia.net/news/Pre-Employment-Exams-in-China-Banned-from-Conducting-Hepatitis-B-Tests-8

To check companies reported violation of rules to require hepatitis B tests for job applicants, the Chinese Government has reiterated a strict ban on the tests during pre-employment physical examinations.

China’s Ministry of Health said that no health institutions are allowed to provide hepatitis B checks as part of pre-employment physical tests regardless of whether the examinees provide consent or not.

On Feb. 10, 2010, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security jointly issued a circular demanding the cancellation of the hepatitis B tests during the health checks for school enrollment and employment nationwide, Xinhua reports.

However, according to a survey released this week, which was conducted by the non-profit Beijing Yirenping Center, some 61.1 percent of the 180 state-run companies surveyed included hepatitis B checks in their pre-employment physical examinations.

More surprisingly, 63 companies said that they would never consider hepatitis B carriers for a job or were reluctant to hire such people.

Yu Fangqiang, the principal of the Yirenping Center, said that such violations mainly resulted from light punishment for violations and some health institutions’ desire for profits.

Source-ANI

Chinese returnee asks how sweet home is

IN the past weeks, I’ve joined several Christmas parties in Berlin, but what I am really longing for is coming back to Shanghai and celebrating the Chinese New Year with my parents. I need a short break from my doctoral thesis in Berlin.

I have been asked so many times by both Chinese and German friends about the plan after achieving the doctoral title in Germany, to stay or to return. I have never hesitated to answer – I will go back to Shanghai. Definitely! Home is sweet.

But what if home is not always sweet? I was surprised when my German supervisor at the Humboldt University of Berlin once seriously suggested that I might need two to three years to get readjusted in Shanghai. But how can this be true? I was born and grew up in this metropolis, and everything in Shanghai is familiar to me. I first just regarded this as a joke, but later I asked myself, is the process of readjusting to Shanghai that easy?

Nan M. Sussman, a renowned American professor, focusing on exploring cultural transitions among sojourners, wrote an article, The Dynamic Nature of Cultural Identity Throughout Cultural Transitions: Why Home Is Not So Sweet, in which she analyzed the relationships among self-concept, cultural identity, and cultural transitions.

The well-known U-curve hypothesis vividly depicts the process of acculturation in a new culture as a curve with four-stages (honeymoon, conflict, critical, and recovery). Later, the return into the home culture is suggested as another U-curve and the whole process of cultural transition was described as a W-curve.

Frankly, I did expect the cultural difference before I left Shanghai for Berlin, but it is frustrating to imagine that I even need to prepare for another round of cultural shock to my own culture.

Nevertheless, on second thought, it is logical and reasonable that one should never take the readjustment for granted, as home is never the same home it once was and the person himself is never the one he once was. Everything at home changes, more or less, during one’s absences. One cannot step into the same river twice, for fresh water is forever flowing towards him. The better one has adapted to the foreign culture, the more difficulties one will come across when he returns to his own culture.

Pressure to succeed

Then, what I am worrying about in going home? Definitely, it is the high social pressure on and expectations of young people. We are all familiar with the standards of “successful” young professionals in Shanghai, who are expected to have a “white-collar” job, to purchase an apartment of his own (a bonus if it is downtown), to own a car and to be able to afford a “golden-week” holiday abroad (in Europe or in Japan) once a year. I am sure I will be excluded from this “promising” group when I come back to Shanghai.

Clothes and trappings make the man in Shanghai. I always turned off the tone of my old mobile phone, as my old-fashioned one made a monotonous noise when someone called me; people around me on a bus would cast their eyes upon me, wondering how could I, being a young people in such an information era, be that out-dated. I didn’t bother to purchase a new one and just switched the ring tones off, to avoid the peculiar eyes.

In Berlin, old-mode mobile phones are sometimes still seen and one doesn’t necessarily have to feel ashamed for only owing an old-fashioned one. Believe it or not, the new interior decorations of my friends or former classmates in Shanghai are more luxurious than that of most German families I have visited.

Cultural transition is challenging and demanding. As a sojourner, I both suffered and benefited tremendously from various cultural shocks in Berlin. When I finally get used to the German language, culture and lifestyle in Germany, it is time to return, and I am actually more than happy to return.

But how shall I encourage myself to be brave and determined? Maybe one of the easy alternatives is not bother to think too much, but when in Shanghai as the Shanghainese do?

Home may still be sweet as we thought, who knows?

Author:Zhu Jiani

China bonuses outdo Hong Kong, Singapore

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Chinese companies plan to pay out larger discretionary 2010 year-end bonuses, as a percentage of base salary, than companies in Hong Kong or Singapore, according a quarterly survey released Thursday by recruitment firm Hudson. About 20% of China companies surveyed will pay bonuses equivalent to 20% or more of base salary, while only 16% of firms surveyed in Hong Kong, and 15% of Singaporean companies will be as generous. China companies also outpace their counterparts in terms of the percentage planning any sort of bonus packets, with 92% of companies to offer the payouts, compared to 87% in Singapore and 82% in Hong Kong, the report said.