u***r 发帖数: 4825 | 1 http://www.economist.com/node/18277181
" Locals first"
Asia's talent market
Employment in Asian firms is booming—but for locals, not Western expats
Mar 3rd 2011 | SINGAPORE | from the print edition
BACK in the days when cushy jobs for foreigners were plentiful in Asia,
Western expats used to get called FILTH—“failed in London, trying Hong
Kong”. Now, though, they may end up as FISHTAILS—“failed in Shanghai,
trying again in London”. This is because employers in Asia, despite strong
demand for managers and professionals, increasingly choose to hire locals,
not outsiders.
Overall, the jobs outlook is brighter the farther east you go: the latest
survey by Manpower, an employment consultancy, found that companies in India
, China and Taiwan expect to hire more than firms in other countries during
the first half of 2011. Western companies in all sorts of industries are
continuing to push into Asia’s high-growth economies. This week, for
example, Tesco, Britain’s largest retailer, announced a big expansion in
China.
However, Joe Expat may not get much of a look-in. Graduates are flooding on
to Asia’s job market from local universities, and Asians with degrees from
Western ones are returning home. Since 2003 roughly 325,000 Chinese have
returned after studying overseas—more than three times as many as in the
entire two decades before—according to David Zweig of Hong Kong University
of Science and Technology, who is writing a book on the subject. The number
of Chinese studying abroad and expected to return home afterwards continues
to rise. Even Westerners with top-class MBAs are finding it tough. Andrew
Stephen of the Singapore campus of INSEAD, a prestigious French business
school, says he has seen good candidates being passed over by multinationals
because they were not Asian.
Since there is no longer so much need for foreign workers, Asian governments
are tightening their visa rules. In 2008 Singapore granted 156,900 work
visas to foreigners and less than half that number of jobs went to residents
. Now the numbers are roughly equal. “There isn’t an overwhelming need to
import young and enthusiastic people any more,” says Declan O’Sullivan, a
director of Singapore-based Kerry Consulting.
It is not just a question of supply and demand, though. Big employers in
Asia, especially those that have got burned in their past dealings with
local governments, are putting a premium on local knowledge, language and
connections. Recruiters say candidates with a demonstrable long-term
commitment to a country, and ready-made guanxi (business and political
relationships), get preference. The locals-first attitude to hiring extends
up all the way to the most senior executive levels. Just as experience in
Asia is coming to be seen as an essential career step in Western
multinationals, the opportunities for recent graduates to gain such
experience seem to be shrinking. |
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