Which jobs pay the most in China?

Who wants to be a millionaire? Apparently, Chinese more than most! The Boston Consulting Gruop (BCG) reported in the 2010 BCG Global Wealth Survey that there are now over one million millionaires in China, ranking China behind the United States and Japan as the country with the most millionaires. And Chris Watkins, Country Manager of MRI Recruitment, even believes the figure given by BCG is low.
"There is a lot of gray income that would raise the number," said Watkins. Watkins describes gray income as often difficult to quantify into a single monetary value but if considered might raise the value of some individuals.

Corruption in human resources

Shock! HR is not immune from corruption.
According to the Shanghai Daily, in June this year, a former director of China Mobile’s human resources department was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for taking bribes totalling 5.06 million USD (32.7 million CNY) between 2002 and 2009. The bribes, which originated from Siemens AG, highlight an endemic problem. German broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, has previously reported in 2007 that fifty percent of Seimens’ business in China had involved offering bribes, and this firm is not alone. State-run news media report that bribery scandals have touched companies as respected as McDonald’s, Whirlpool, McKinsey & Co, and ABB.

A view from the Country side

Over the past two years, there has been a dramatic shift in the human resource landscape in China. In the wake of the global economic meltdown companies shed workers and retrenched. Rampant inflation has accompanied the recovery. Coupled with the arrival of the so-called "Post 90" generation on the labor market, these set of factors have created far greater instability in the labor force, more rapid tunover and lower retention rates. This has been especially true for foreign enterprises operating in economic zones designed to attract foreign investment.

Working between Hong Kong and mainland China

Hong Kong is a city that is building its links with Mainland China, both culturally and financially, and as such is welcoming many employees from the Mainland to help link Hong Kong companies closer to the rapidly increasing prosperity and purchasing power of their Mainland cousins. But this isn’t to say Mainland China and Hong Kong are synonymous. The links might be rebuilding quickly, since the reunification of 1997, however, there are still many striking differences that Mainland Chinese encounter on their arrival in HKSAR.