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Front Page of the Day
Crying out for a rice bowlPosted by Banyue, February 18, 2008 6:13 PM
 Zhengzhou Evening Post February 18, 2008 The top headline and front page picture on today's Zhengzhou Evening Post concern the crowds of people mobbing a job fair in Zhengzhou. This is the first big job fair in the city following the Spring Festival. More than 20,000 people have visited since the fair opened two days ago; the article presents a snapshot of the difficult employment situation that currentl y exists in China. Other headlines: • Xie Tingxin and Li Jianying, both from Henan, won the "China's 10 Most Moving People of 2007" award, presented by CCTV. Following the death of his wife, Xie took care his mother-in-law for 33 years. Li, a pilot, chose to sacrifice himself in a crash-landing rather than bail out and leave his plane to plow into a village. • Kosovo declared independence, but Serbia has stated its refusal to recognize the declaration. • China's men's football team was defeated by South Korea, 2:3, yesterday in Chongqing. The so-called "Korea-phobia", which has dogged the Chinese team for 30 years, has not yet abated. • Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai won the Silver Bear at the 58th Berlinale, the Berlin International Film Festival. His film In Love We Trust (左右), a story of divorce and leukemia, was beaten by Jose Padilha's The Elite Squad. |
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Comments on Crying out for a rice bowl
In contrast to the job fair crush in Zhengzhou, this is the situation in Guangzhou, and presumably the whole Pearl River Delta, according to the SCMP yesterday:
GUANGDONG - Businesses in Guangzhou raised salary levels to attract labourers at a job fair on Saturday, the Guangzhou Daily reports. About 4,000 job seekers attended the event which boasted more than 7,000 vacancies. Some firms had raised basic wages by 30 per cent to attract skilled workers.
I could be wrong but I imagine the job fair in Guangzhou was for factory workers. Skilled factory workers are being lured away from the PRD right now. An example in the SCMP recently was a furniture factory in Shijiazhuang offering 2000 RMB, a comparatively high monthly wage, for skilled hands.
Presumably the Zhengzhou fair was more for office work. To use a cliche, Chinese people seem to view office work as offering more "face". Also there are practical concerns such as workplace safety and the opportunity for promotion. Worth shoving for.
I think let aside the sensationalization of the newspaper, what should be focused here is the real problem--inefficient hr management scheme in China, which does not only include a conprehensive database of talents for employers to easily search for and an established recruiment procedure, but also an interactive and tuitive effort between the supply and demand. In other words, this society needs to understand better about what types of talents it wants and how to search, measure, select and further develope these talents.
I think some statistics can tell better than the picture. China is in a severe lack of talents at this moment, and it still prefers home-grown talents than overseas. So the problem is how to brige this demand and supply. Given that the labor market is still restricted under region division, and lack of transparency, which indicates a huge untouched HR market to caltivate. If you also have some insights on this issue, I'm looking forward to carrying on the discussion.