China Watch Blog

China Watch Blog reports that Qantas and the NSW Government have announced a new $30 million partnership to promote Sydney and regional NSW to the world.

NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell and Qantas Group Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce signed the three-year agreement at Qantas’ facilities at Sydney Airport, marking the largest tourism and major events marketing partnership in the State’s history.

Qantas

Premier O’Farrell said the deal involved Qantas matching the NSW Government dollar for dollar to attract more international visitors particularly from the United States, United Kingdom, Continental Europe, China, South-East Asia, Japan and New Zealand.

“Nothing says Australia more than the unmistakeable red tail with the flying kangaroo and the home of Qantas is right here in Sydney,” O’Farrell said.

“This partnership with Qantas is the cornerstone of our strategy to increase tourism to NSW, providing a boost to our economy and helping to create more jobs.

“We will be aggressively targeting big spending leisure and business travellers from overseas which will be a boon for our hotels, restaurants and retail sector.

“This will build on our standing as the nation’s leader for international visitation and expenditure and the preferred destination for key emerging markets.

“We understand the importance of tourism to the State’s economy – that’s why we’re building a new convention and entertainment precinct at Darling Harbour and investing in partnerships like this with iconic brands like Qantas.”

Joyce said the time was right to elevate the partnership between Qantas and Destination NSW to a higher level.

“Qantas is Australia’s national airline, flying from Sydney to every continent on earth and to every corner of Australia,” Joyce said.

“Sydney is the gateway to Australia with more than 50 per cent of all international visitors to Australia arriving at Sydney Airport so it’s fitting this is the largest partnership we have ever entered into with a State Government.

“We have seen a fantastic and tangible response to work we have done with Destination NSW in the past and we think working more closely will result in more people visiting NSW and flying Qantas.”

The partnership – which sees both the NSW Government and Qantas invest $15 million each over the three years – will include international advertising and marketing campaigns, marketing activities around major events and joint public relations activities. There will be a strong focus on digital
platforms including online and social media.

China Watch Blog has learnt that China’s national civil servant examination wrapped up its registration process on Wednesday at 5 pm. The six vacancies for Ningbo Customs Supervision have attracted more than 6,270 qualified applicants.

As the position does not have many prerequisites to hold applicants back, the post has become the most-sought-after position in this year’s national civil servant examination in Ningbo.

Students majoring in economics, chemical engineering, physics, mechanics, textiles and management can apply for the vacancies. Importantly, the post requires no academic qualifications beyond a bachelor’s degree.

The number of civil servants recruited in Ningbo will double to 357 in 2013. Ningbo Customs will offer 10 posts with 69 job vacancies. Apart from the Ningbo Customs Supervision vacancies, the post of Ningbo Customs Comprehensive Secretary also saw 2,402 qualified applicants.

China Watch Blog has learnt that Hong Kong experienced a 23% decrease in the number of financial services job opportunities in Q3 of 2012 compared to Q3 of 2011.

According to the latest quarterly Job Barometer from eFinancialCareers, a leading global career site network for professionals working in the investment banking, asset management and securities industries, the overall APAC region experienced a less dramatic decline (-16%) over the period with average job postings decreasing from 2,876 in Q3 of 2011 to 2,408 in Q3 of 2012. Singapore and Australia recorded decreases of -5% and -34% respectively.

Despite the slowdown, churn and a small amount of conservative expansion has kept the job market afloat in the last quarter. Comparing Q3 of 2012 with Q2 of 2012, APAC job opportunities fell only slightly (-2%). Singapore was the only market registering growth, with a modest 1% increase over the period. In comparison, job opportunities in Hong Kong and Australia decreased by 5% and 6% respectively.

“The last 12 months have taught us that even with the support of China as a major growth engine, Hong Kong is not immune to the redundancies that have swept through global financial services,” said George McFerran, Managing Director, Asia Pacific, eFinancialCareers. “With a slowdown in economic growth and a transition of political leadership expected for Mainland China, Hong Kong firms are taking a conservative approach to hiring with a focus on highly specialized positions in growth sectors such as capital markets, insurance and risk management.”

Asia Pacific Top Performing Sectors in Q3

Capital markets, insurance and risk management were the top performing sectors in the regions, with quarter-on-quarter growth of 30%, 23% and 19% respectively.

Capital markets – Capital markets saw quarter-on-quarter growth across APAC of 30%, with ongoing demand happening outside the front office – in risk, compliance, quantitative analytics and IT.

Insurance – The insurance sector remains a bright spot of hiring driven largely by growth recruitment, especially for labor-intensive agent, claims and underwriting positions. Recruitment plans for large insurance companies are ambitious in a region where growing prosperity is resulting in an expanding demand for insurance products. Recent natural disasters in the APAC region over the last two years have also reinforced the need for insurance professionals.

Risk management – As banks continue to come under scrutiny from shareholders and regulators, the operational risk job function is broadening in scope and job specifications are becoming more vigorous. Local talent shortages and internationally transferable skills mean overseas-based candidates are sometimes hired for these roles. Liquidity risk professionals are also in demand as banks strive to meet Basel III milestones and come under pressure from ratings agencies.

China Watch Blog wishes to point out an big irony in China, which has one fifth the population in the world, with 1.35 billion people, but still hundreds and thousands of mall businesses in Guangzhou city, Guangdong Province cannot find workers, and jobs are going a-begging.

China Daily published two photos of CFP which illustrates this. See below.

Note the red job vacancy signs of small businesses in Guangzhou

Job recruiters, but few takers

Thousands of workers left for home before the Chinese Lunar New Year this year, and they decided to permanently stay at home instead of returning to uncertain fates in Guangzhou, where many thousand factories have closed down as orders were not forthcoming from the weak US economy and Europe which was embroiled in the Eurozone crisis.

Many factory owners have decided to either retire, sell of their businesses or simply close them down, as the original equipment manufacturers businesses were becoming scarce.

Those OEM businesses which progressed to original design manufacturing with their own brands and even own retail shops, or supplying to wholesalers are thriving.

Factory owners interviewed say that innovation is the key to survival, otherwise, the traditional OEM business that required little skill is slowly shrinking. Many such businesses have moved to neighbouring countries like Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

China is moving towards more value added industries, and developing more skilled services industries. Others are turning to information technology and businesses involving IT.

China Watch Blog has learnt that China’s economic growth will likely pick up in the second half of 2012 as a raft of policies rolled out to boost economic activity gain traction, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Shanghai International Airport

However, it warned the economy still faces severe challenges at home and abroad and that authorities should not underestimate the impact on the corporate sector from slowing demand.

China also revealed that its urban jobless rate held steady for the eighth straight quarter at 4.1 percent at the end of June

China Watch Blog has learnt that Marissa Mayer, one of the top executives at Google, will be the next C.E.O. of Yahoo, making her one of the most prominent women in Silicon Valley and corporate America.

The appointment of Ms. Mayer, who was employee No. 20 at Google and was one of the few public faces of the company, is considered a surprising coup for Yahoo, which has struggled in recent years to attract top flight talent in its battle with competitors like Google and Facebook.

Ms. Mayer, 37, had for years been responsible for the look and feel of Google’s most popular products: the famously unadorned white search homepage, Gmail, Google News and Google Images.

China Watch Blog has learnt that a Queensland father has offered 50 cases of beer to anyone who will employ his son as an apprentice, ABC News wire reported. For more, go to this link.

http://www.abc.net.au/bestof/?WT.svl=bestOfScroller#s3533954

China Watch Blog has learnt that Shenzhen officials intend this year to attract 1,800 professionals from overseas, including expats and Chinese nationals living abroad, which would bring the total number of professionals from overseas in Shenzhen to 24,000, Shenzhen’s human resources and social security bureau said.

Professionals

To reach that goal, city officials will increase policies to help expats to work in the city and provide subsidies to help overseas Chinese professionals and students return to China and work in Shenzhen. To attract high-end professionals and research teams, the city will organize recruitment fairs overseas and utilize liaison and recruitment offices in the United States, Europe and Japan.

“We will use the national 1,000 Expat Experts Recruitment Plan to attract professionals to work in the city’s key fields and industries,” bureau chief Wang Min said.

Professionals at various levels will be eligible for cash and housing subsidies from the Shenzhen government.

The policies will give priority to professionals working in emerging industries and science, education, public health and sports, bureau members said.

Under an ambitious five-year Peacock Plan initiated last year, Shenzhen aims to attract 50 research teams and 10,000 high-end professionals to enhance its capability for independent innovation in pillar and emerging industries.

Two expats were accredited as high-end professionals under the Peacock Plan last year. Jeffrey S. Lehman, chancellor and founding dean of Beijing University School of Transnational Law, and Richard Jackson, president of Shenzhen Development Bank, received Level A accreditations from the city government. Each received a housing subsidy of 1.5 million yuan (US$240,000). A total of 61 professionals were accredited at three levels and received subsidies of different amounts.

The city attracted nine research teams and 1,747 professionals from overseas last year.

China Watch Blog reports that many as many employees in south China have not returned to work after the nation’s Chinese Lunar New Year holidays, jobs at businesses in Guangdong, ranging from restaurants and toy makers to other manufacturing companies, have gone abegging due to the massive labor shortage.

As of Jan 30, some 3.2 million migrant workers had returned to Guangdong, the China Daily reported, citing sources at the provincial human resources and social security authorities on Thursday.

The authorities had predicted that as many as 9.8 million workers would return after the week-long holiday. By Thursday, only 60 percent of the companies based in the province had resumed business after the festival.

In Foshan, a major manufacturing city in the Pearl River Delta area, a growing number of factories were still affected by the labor shortage, although the overall demand for migrant workers has fallen this year.

The local labor authorities forecast that the city needs 200,000 more workers this year, but at least 85,000 workers have still not returned after the festival.

“Some migrant workers have not returned because they have better job options in their hometowns, which offer wages almost as high as those in the Pearl River Delta,” said Zhang Baoying, director of Guangzhou Human Resources Market Center.

Ma Xiujuan, a migrant worker from Northeast China’s Heilongjiang province, plans to go home to look for a job after visiting a job fair in Guangzhou on Tuesday.

“Most companies here offer a salary of between 2,000 yuan ($317) and 3,000 yuan a month, which is even lower than those offered in my hometown,” she said.

“Factories in the delta area are expected to attract more workers by raising wages,” said Peng Peng, a senior researcher with Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences.

Sources with the Guangdong human resources and social security authorities said the minimum wage in the province will be raised by 13 percent this year.

“But raising wages is far from enough to keep more workers. Authorities should introduce more measures to improve the welfare of migrant workers and promote equal treatment in education, healthcare and housing,” Peng said.

He mainly attributed the labor shortage in the delta area to sluggish profits and industrial adjustment.

“Many businesses, especially small- and medium-sized companies dare not raise the wages because of rising production costs and slower business growth,” said Peng.

The profits of Chinese industrial companies increased at a slower pace in 2011 as the European debt crisis threatened the nation’s exports, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on its website on Friday.

Net profits for the year only rose by 25.4 percent year-on-year from 2010 to 5.45 trillion yuan, the NBS said. The growth rate rebounded from 24.4 percent in the first 11 months of last year.

But it marked a gradual downshift from growth of 32 percent year-on-year seen during the first quarter, 28.7 percent during the first half, and 27 percent in the first three quarters.

The authorities have introduced a series of measures to ensure funding for key investment and to boost credit in the economy, especially for small- and medium-sized businesses, to help sustain growth.

China Watch Blog reports that Hong Kong’s Gross Domestic Product grew by 5% in real terms in 2011 and the underlying inflation rate averaged 5.3%, a marked rise from the 1.7% rate in 2010.

Delivering his 2012-13 Budget today, Financial Secretary John Tsang said exports steadied in the fourth quarter to bring growth for 2011 to 3.6% in real terms.

He said Hong Kong lost 62,000 jobs during the economic recession in the wake of the financial tsunami but the unemployment rate rebounded slightly to 3.3% towards the end of 2011, which still represented full employment.

Mr Tsang said the Government’s measures to stabilise the economy and the tenacity of Hong Kong people have helped the city come through crisis after crisis.