Photo: businessweek.com

Before Chinese New Year (Jan 25th 2009), Chang’an Motors held a recruitment drive at a hotel in the suburbs of the home of the American motorcar industry, Detroit, following one month of advertising in the city to try and attract some of the best in the automobile industry, welcoming their CVs and starting to arrange interviews.

The head of Chang’an HR Wang Miyu said: “I remember that evening very well. As soon as I took the podium to speak I had to start off by apologizing profusely, as the massive demand for jobs had overloaded our e-mail – the system had crashed and we couldn’t open it.”

Mr Wang went onto explain that they had received over 7000 CVs, more than the e-mail server could handle and if you couple this with all the CVs they had stored from their recruitment trip to Europe, it was too much.

Estimates put attendance for that one recruitment event at 200 people, including many car factory assembly line workers looking for a career change working in China. One Chinese worker who had gone to work in Detroit, Yu Chao said: “I don’t care, I’ll go wherever I’m needed no matter whether it’s the US or China.” Yu had already become a US citizen.

The representative of the Detroit Chinese Workers and Sino-US Automobile Association said: “Before no one ever heard of Chinese mechanics being laid-off, everyone knew how hard working they are. However now it’s all changed and in order to save money, companies are axing Chinese guys just as much as white guys.

And it’s not just Chang’an, but other Chinese car manufacturers such as Jeely and Huachen and been holding events in Detroit. When Shanghai Municipality went to Wall Street on a headhunting mission they came back to China with an astonishing 150 kilos of CVs!

Out of the 50,000 mechanics in Detroit, Chinese mechanics working in the automobile industry make up around 6000, with the rate returning to China quite low at around 10%. Indeed, Sun Zong told reporters that although he left Ford and went back to China, the vast majority of his friends would rather leave the car industry in light of the economic crisis than leave the USA.

In the 1970s, over 2000 Korean car researchers finally went back home and on doing so laid the foundations for the Korean car industry. China has yet to see just a return of talent. Wu Xuebin is of the opinion that the reasons for this are a little more complex than just salary. Indeed, things like housing, children’s education and medical insurance all play a part in the decision whether or not to return to China.

After returning to China, according to Wu Xubin’s study, 70-80% of returning Chinese find it very difficult to get on with local management. Culture shock is a problem most face at first and Wu puts this down to two reasons. The first is that because the company spent a lot of time and money recruiting these overseas Chinese engineers, they have unrealistic expectations of what to expect from them. They don’t give them enough time to settle in.

And it’s not just overseas Chinese. Martin Repine left the Chrysler Co. last November to join a Chinese manufacturer as a sound technology researcher. He told us that he had left Detroit for over 6 months and had only been back once. “At that time I really wanted the chance to go and work in China, but now I’m just left feeling let down” Confessed Repine, who says that the endless and totally pointless meetings with management really get on his nerves.

Photo: careerone.com

Repine also said that the management wanted too many quick results. “This is a science and not something that can be hurried. Besides, in the States I was just a technician, and now I’m a manager overseeing other people’s projects as well as doing my own research.” He finally added that although his salary in China is the same as in the US ($100,000 per year), now he lacks all of the benefits (such as health care and housing allowance) that he got in America. He is thinking seriously about leaving China. Indeed, on average most foreign recruits leave within 2 months of coming to China!

It would seem that regardless of whether you are a returning Chinese or foreign worker, it is tough adapting to life in a Chinese company where contracts are often left unsigned and you lack even the most fundamental labor rights that local employees enjoy. Add to that the fact that many foreign employees are hired for jobs beyond their capability just because they have a white face, coupled with a day to day lack of logic and common sense applied to working methods and the inability for any decision to be made quickly simply leads to an unbearable build up of frustration.

Do you work in a Chinese company or school? What have been your experiences? Please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of the page.

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