Shrinking expat job market in Beijing

By Meng Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-16 08:17

Employers are becoming increasingly picky about the type of qualifications held by foreign staff as the expatriate job market shrinks in Beijing, experts say.

Yang Jiameng, spokeswoman for the information center at the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs (SAFEA), said there had been a huge increase in the number of expatriates looking for employment within China's job market in the past five years.

Industries with the most demand for foreign talent were education, finance and IT, she said.

"In the past, we have had many job vacancies, but not enough applicants, but that has completely changed now," Yang told METRO.

SAFEA organized a job fair attended by about 700 people in Beijing on the weekend. It has held major job fairs in the city every April since 2005. About 200 foreigners attended the first expo in 2005, but that increased to 1,200 in April this year. This is the first year that SAFEA had also held a winter job fair.

Colin Friedman, managing director at China Expert International, said the job market for foreigners is shrinking in China.

"It is becoming harder and harder for international people to find suitable jobs in China, because there are more and more Chinese people with excellent English skills," he said.

Yang Jingjing, the HR manager at IP Chine, said the French information technology company wanted to recruit five people but few had the required qualifications.

"We want someone who cannot only communicate fluently in English but who also has excellent IT skills. However, most of the applicants do not have a professional background in the IT industry," he said.

Molly Leighton, an international teacher recruiter for English First, an English training school in China, said the global financial crisis had resulted in an increase in the number of foreigners seeking jobs in China.

"This year, for our spoken English teaching positions, we've received a lot of resumes from people with professional backgrounds, even lawyers," she said.

Dai Kebin, CEO of Wisest, a recruitment company founded in 2000, said that apart from financial crisis, the opportunity of working in an emerging economy also attracted foreign talent.

"Since last October, our company has received two or three e-mails every week from people in other countries regarding jobs in China.

"The number was two or three e-mails per month before that," he said.

James Talent, a US student studying Chinese at the University of International Business and Economics, said it is difficult for foreigners who do not want to be English teachers to find a job in China.

"I will go back to my home country at the end of the year if I cannot find anything good," he said.

He believed that he had a better chance of finding a job in the US because he knew people there.

According to the latest report from the National Bureau of Statistics, around 217,000 foreigners held work permits in China at the end of 2008, an increase of 7,000 on the previous year.