Category News of China

Simply Hired launches Web site for China

Job search engine Simply Hired said it launched a localized destination Web site for China.

Mountain View-based Simply Hired said its expansion broadens its Asia presence and joins localized job Web sites in 16 other countries across five continents and in nine languages.

Through its partnership with Mountain View-based LinkedIn, Simply Hired China will also allow job seekers to find connections they have within companies.

“Hiring managers are starting to find it difficult to fill open positions in China because the demand for workers rose more than 14 percent in the third quarter from 2008,” the company said.

China recruiting foreign workers

For those with a financial background who are looking for an opportunity to work overseas, China may be the place to go.

Reuters cites a Chinese government official saying that China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) began its first global recruitment search for money managers to aid in the investment of the country’s $2.3 trillion of foreign exchange reserves.

A SAFE official told Reuters that the government would like to increase its return on the reserves and wants to tap into the global resources of bankers who may be looking for a job.

The official, who could not be named because he was not authorized to talk to the media, told the news source, “It is time for us to hunt talent from overseas financial markets, as the post-crisis economic outlook becomes clear to financial professionals and their institutions.”

According to the SAFE website, there are a range of positions open such as, portfolio managers, operations and legal consultants and research staff. Applicants should have a working knowledge of both Chinese and English as well as at least two years of work experience at a well known financial institution.

The government official interviewed by the Reuters declined to say how many foreign workers SAFE was looking to hire.

According to oDesk research, China is a popular country for providers on its site. There are currently 947 providers from China who charge an average hourly rate of $18.27 for their services.

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.

Pressure builds on employees

Nearly nine out of 10 Chinese workers are under growing pressure at work as China leads the world toward economic recovery, a global survey has found.

The survey by Regus, a US-based provider of workplace solutions, polled 11,000 companies in 13 countries during August and September. It found 58 percent of companies worldwide had seen a rise in workplace stress during the preceding two years.

“Nearly 86 percent of Chinese people report that their levels of stress had become ‘higher’ or ‘much higher’ during the past two years,” the survey noted.

The smallest increase in stress worldwide was felt in Germany and the Netherlands, with a respective 48 percent and 47 percent of workers saying they had experienced more stress.

With the World Bank forecasting China’s GDP will grow by 8.4 percent this year, indicating the country is well on the way to recovery, Chinese workers are at the sharp end of the world’s efforts to rebound.

“While their international counterparts feel stressed as a result of the global economic downturn, the stress faced by Chinese workers is twofold,” said Hans Leijten, regional vice-president of East Asia for the Regus Group. “On the one hand, they must react fast to the new opportunities provided by a country that maintains a higher-than-8-percent GDP growth. On the other hand, they have to deal with the retraction challenges presented by the global economic downturn.”

About 42 percent of Chinese workers said they were particularly stressed about the increasing focus on profitability.

Among the stressed workers, 28 percent said maintaining excellent levels of customer service was the main reason for their sleepless nights.

Another survey, from the Horizon Research Group, said respondents quizzed in June complained that the global financial crisis had contributed to rising pressure among Chinese workers.

About 34.2 percent of people interviewed for that survey said the crisis had increased workplace pressure.

Those most affected by the added stress were in the 24-30 age group and the majority worked for foreign-invested enterprises, the report said.

Most of the pressure at work came from career development, performance appraisal and salary issues.

In the midst of the downturn, employees were involved in fewer malpractices, were more likely to volunteer to do overtime and more inclined to postpone planned leave.

Both surveys reflect Chinese society, where many employees are inclined to put in long hours.

“Karoshi”, or death from chronic overworking, is no longer a phenomenon reserved for the Japanese. In China, there have been reports of employees dying on the job. Early this month, a young software engineer at a video website died at his desk after putting in a series of 13-hour days.

“The pressure does not necessarily ease with different economic situations,” said Sam Liu, a 31-year-old marketing strategy manager with a global company. “You have one kind of pressure in good times and another kind in bad times.

“I have time to sleep. But I have to sacrifice my hobbies and the time I would like to spend with my friends.”

Among the reasons why some Chinese people work so hard is the massive competition within the vast workforce.

“There is always another guy who is willing to do 12 things when your boss has asked you to do 10 things.

“You deal with the pressure or you quit,” Liu said. “It is up to you.”

Hong Kong’s unemployment rate fell slightly to 5.2%

HONG KONG, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) — Hong Kong’s unemployment rate for the three months ended October fell slightly to 5.2 percent, the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government said Tuesday.

The unemployment rate in the three-month period ended September, in comparison, was 5.3 percent, while that in the three-month period ended August was 5.4 percent.

Decreases in the unemployment rate were mainly observed in the construction, food services, insurance and wholesale sectors, the department said.

The Labor and Welfare Department said the further decrease reflected that the labor market has continued to show signs of improvement along with economic recovery.

“In particular, the unemployment rate of youths aged 15 to 19 dropped notably by 3 percentage points to 22.7 percent, indicating that the youth employment situation is gradually improving,” Secretary for Labor and Welfare Matthew Cheung said.

“It is clear that the (HKSAR) government’s all-out efforts to create jobs in the construction sector are continuing to bear fruit,” he added.

Cheung said the near-term outlook would depend mainly on the pace of the economic recovery and job creation.

“As business conditions continue to improve, employers are expected to adopt a more positive attitude towards new hiring. This will ease the pressure on unemployment,” he said.

Nevertheless, Cheung said the decrease in total employment in the latest round of figures suggested that it might take some time for the labor market to keep up with the pace of economic rebound.

“A sustained and solid recovery still hinges on a fundamental improvement in the external environment. We will remain vigilant and continue to monitor closely the labor market situation,” he said.

Macao’s median monthly employment earnings remains stable in Q3

MACAO, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) — The median monthly employment earnings of the employed population in Macao amounted to 8,500 patacas (1,076 U.S. dollars) in the third quarter of this year, the same level as that of the second quarter, according to the figures released Thursday by the city’s Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).

The figures showed that the median monthly employment earnings of the employed residents held stable as the previous quarter in the period, at 10,000 patacas (1,265 U.S. dollars).

Total labor force in Macao stood at 328,000 in the third quarter, with 316,000 being employed. Analyzed by industry, the majority of the employed were engaging in recreational, cultural, gaming and other services (23.2 percent) and hotels, restaurants and similar activities (14.1 percent).

Meanwhile, the unemployed population was 12,000 in the period, of which 82.4 percent were searching for a new job, while 17.6 percent were fresh labor force entrants searching for their first job. With regard to the educational attainment, 34.6 percent of the unemployed had primary education or lower, 29 percent had junior secondary education and 19.8 percent had senior secondary education, according to the DSEC.

HK unemployment rate records first drop amid global financial turmoil

HONG KONG, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) — Hong Kong’s labor market has begun to improve as the latest seasonally adjusted unemployment rate recorded its first drop since the outbreak of the global financial turmoil last year, said the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government on Monday.

Hong Kong’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from 5.4percent in the June-August period to 5.3 percent in July-September. The underemployment rate remained unchanged at 2.4percent, the Census and Statistics Department said on Monday.

Secretary for Labor and Welfare Matthew Cheung said as business conditions gradually improve and the labor market stabilizes, employers may adopt a more positive attitude towards recruitment.

“This is expected to ease the pressure on the unemployment rate in the near term,” Cheung said.

Total employment in July-September was 3,495,500, about the same as June-August which stood at 3,495,300. The labor force fell7, 400 to 3,704, 700 in July-September.

The number of unemployed fell 7,700 to 209,100 in July- September while the number of underemployed rose 1,700 to 89,900.

Falls in the unemployment rate were mainly observed in the construction, information and communications, arts, entertainment and recreation sectors.

The unemployment rate of people aged 15 to 19 fell 2.7 percent to 25.7 percent, showing that the local government’s efforts to boost youth employment have begun to take effect.

Cheung also noted that the recovery path may still be uneven as overseas markets have yet to show visible improvement.

He said the government will promote employment on all fronts through training, retraining and skills upgrading.

Firms in China set to increase headcount

THE number of job openings on China’s mainland is expected to rise in the fourth quarter after posting consecutive declines since last October, according to a report released yesterday by Hudson Recruitment Ltd, a global consulting company.

In the survey of 650 companies on the Chinese mainland, the Hudson Report concluded that 39 percent of them plan to increase headcount in the fourth quarter this year – a sharp increase from 27 percent in the last quarter.

More than half of the firms polled signaled that they will keep their payroll steady in the quarter. Only 5 percent of the companies are planning to cut their number of employees, a drop from 12 percent in the third quarter.

“Although the overall hiring expectations are still lower than a year ago, it is a clear sign that the job market is going on an upward trend,” said Mark Carriban, managing director of Hudson Asia.

The study also showed that China reported the highest hiring expectations of the markets surveyed in Asia.

The banking and financial services sector posted the highest expectations of hiring and the greatest increase from the previous quarter. About 54 percent of respondents plan to hire more staff, up from 28 percent in the last quarter.

Expectations have also risen among information technology and telecommunication firms, with 53 percent of the respondents predicting hiring more, representing a substantial jump from 33 percent of the previous quarter.

The media, public relations and advertising companies have the lowest expectations of hiring intention, with 17 percent planning to increase payroll. But only 2 percent say they will shed staff this quarter, down from 17 percent in last quarter, the report said.

The Hudson Report is released quarterly after surveying about 2,000 key employment decision makers.