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Finance People. Shanghai Says Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.

By Dan Harris and Steve Dickinson

There is a fairly prevalent theory that the best time to start a new business is during a recession/depression. I buy that. During tough times, established companies often disappear, get overly cautious, and lay off scads of good people, who can be hired relatively cheaply. During tough times, big shifts can occur. A few months ago, I pretty much scoffed at the idea of Shanghai becoming a financial capital, in a post, entitled, "Shanghai To Replace New York As World's Financial Center. I Don't Think So." Though I certainly am not convinced, I certainly am not scoffing either. To use a bad pun (particularly during this bear market), China is grabbing the bull by the horns and seems to be boldly making moves to increase its worldwide standing as a financial center. My best friend from college, attorney-editor-author, Jacob Margolies (b/k/a "THE Cob") was kind enough to send me the notes from his interview of some of the people who came from Shanghai to help lead a group of Chinese financial companies who had traveled to London, Chicago, and New York in search of bi-lingual Chinese-English financial talent (strongly focusing on Chinese nationals). Jacob's notes are as follows: By the way, no US press attended this event only Chinese and Japanese (maybe 6 reporters in all) Shanghai Job Fair Press conference-December 13 at Sheraton LaGuardia East hotel in Flushing Queens ------------------------------------------------ Dali Mao, deputy director General -- Shanghai Bureau of Human resources and Social Security: (He introduces the delegation members and welcomes everyone and thanks them for coming to learn more about Shanghai) We started our trip on December 5. Our first destination was London. On December 6 we held a similar event to this in London and on December 9 we held another one in Chicago and this today is the last event of our trip. We have two main objectives for this trip. The first is to welcome potential candidates to come to Shanghai since the city is trying to build itself into an international center of economy, finance, trade and shipping center in the world. The second purpose is to take this opportunity to meet with Chinese students and those Chinese who have been working abroad and learn about their current situation. This is part of our regular work. That is a brief introduction. Q-and-A Q: According to one report, 27 companies from Shanghai are participating in this event. Can I ask how many people are you going to employ and how is the reaction of the applicants? A: Actually 19 financial institutions from Shanghai came with us on this trip and another 10 financial institutions of Shanghai put up their vacancies for them. They did not actually come on the trip. We have 170 mid-level to high level job vacancies that we brought over in the financial area. And we also brought over job information on about 1,000 non-financial job vacancies. Among those 170 positions, it covers jobs in banking, insurance, asset management and pension insurance. This event has received very positive feedback from the Chinese overseas applicants and also from the media. Nearly 1000 turned out to the event in London. 200 turned out in Chicago. And according to our very initial calculation already 400 have registered for today's event. (note it seems over 1000 attended in NY judging from the large crowds) This is the biggest event ever organized by the Shanghai municipality in terms of financial human resources (HR) exchange to set up a platform for companies to participate in international HR exchange. Q: (from Taiwan media) Was the trip planned before or after the financial crisis? And what has been the response of laid-off financial people abroad to this event? A: This event is part of our regular work. Shanghai has set a development goal to be an international center for economics, finance, trade and shipping in the world. This has been, our so called 4-center strategy, since 1992. In order to build an international city, you need talent from all over the world. We need financial talent from all over the world. So this event just happened coincidentally with the financial crisis. We did similar things before. We had a similar event in 2002 and earlier. So far we have received very positive response from the applicants whether or not they had been laid-off. Generally they want to learn about the situation in Shanghai. Rather than just a job fair, it is a kind of information exchange event for those who want to have career development in China and Shanghai. --------------------------------------- Sheng Yu Rao-Deputy Director (Division of Human Resources) Before our departure from Shanghai, we did a lot of preparation to ensure a proper result We did not just put out job information but also worked to enhance overseas Chinese knowledge about Shanghai and also upgrade the local institutions and help them to have better knowledge of the needs of overseas Chinese professionals. We have strengthened contacts and channels with overseas Chinese professionals. Our initial results have been very positive not just from the people who showed up but also from the overseas financial institutions who told us they appreciate us for organizing this event. This has deepened knowledge about Shanghai. There was a lot of detailed preparation work to make it easy for the applicants to find a match. We brought over 12,800 documents, not only about the job openings but also about the financial institutions of Shanghai and also about recent developments of Shanghai's financial industry. And we have provided contact details for these institutions so overseas Chinese can have further contact with these institutions. This is a good opportunity to open and broaden mutual exchange channels with overseas Chinese. By way of comparison, we did this in 2002 and then brought 7 companies and had 50 job openings for the financial service bureau. So you can see that the scale is quite different this time. It is a big difference today. Just in terms of quantity it is much higher than 2002. --------------------- Weimao Huang-Director General Secretary (Station chief) Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security: The issue of returnees, Chinese students studying abroad, is an issue that the Shanghai municipality attaches great importance to. Currently we have over 70,000 returnees in Shanghai. We have been doing our best to attract Chinese students overseas back. Since 2003 we started the so-called 10,000 convergence program-aiming to attract 10,000 students back in 3 years time. And so far annually there have been about 5000 Chinese students from overseas returning to China and they have done a great job in adding to the local economic and social development. Almost every year we organize some kind of event to enhance contact with overseas Chinese professionals. In short, we expect more overseas Chinese to come back to Shanghai to support the economic and social development and we will provide them opportunities to realize their career ambitions. [Mr. Huang invites you all to Shanghai to learn about this overseas Chinese and career development.] Q: Has the financial crisis in NY or London affected this trip? Have businesses in Shanghai decided not to hire that previously had been planning on participating in this event? Mao: The China market is pretty normal still and development remains the key theme and that includes developing a financial center in Shanghai. So in terms of this event, we do not see any negative impact at all in terms of the recruiting side. Q: How are pay and benefits compared to US and Europe in financial services industry? Mao It varies depending on the institution. Q: Can you hire laid-off Wall Street workers at a lower cost now? Huang: We will not reduce our pace or speed because of the financial crisis in building a financial center in Shanghai. We still have dozens of companies coming here to recruit which reflects that the financial industry in Shanghai is still in quite good shape. We are very serious about this event and you can see we put out very detailed job descriptions in terms of job titles the institutions have listed jobs in development strategy, asset management, working with financial derivatives, and also for IT jobs. In terms of salary, we have jobs hiring for up to 1.5 million rmb which I think is roughly $220,000 dollars. What do you think? PS Sorry to keep hawking for votes, but I am pleased to say we have taken the lead in the American Bar Association's (ABA) Best Law Blogs competition and I would certainly appreciate your going here and voting China Law Blog.

Full post as published by China Law Blog on December 16, 2008 (boomark / email).