Are Americans China’s New Migrant Workers?

Are Americans China’s New Migrant Workers?
Aug 25, 2009 By Paul Bacon , eChinacities.com

Special Topic: Finding and Keeping Jobs in China

There was a recent New York Times article about American graduates heading to China in search of new opportunities. It was a pretty interesting piece, but, at first, it had me wondering. "What's the big deal?" I asked myself, "Surely, Americans have been coming to work in China for years?" This certainly is true. However, it is not the fact that Americans are on their way to China in greater numbers that is of interest. Rather, it is the change in the persona and profile that grabs the attention. As the article explained, the new waves of laowai arriving in China represent the second generation, and, this generation is very different to the one that came before.

To best explain this, perhaps it is wise to head back in time, to the mid 1990s, when Americans first began to move to China in earnest. Back then, the majority of those coming to the Middle Kingdom were sent by major companies that were just beginning to expand into the Chinese market. At the time, China was far from a glamour posting – it offered little more than raw potential. However, tapping into the billion potential customers here was never going to be easy. After almost fifty years of a strictly controlled central economy, China had fallen behind the West in terms of technology and its knowledge base – even in 2006 companies were complaining of a lack of experienced and qualified local employees, so imagine what the situation was like in the 90s! Because of this knowledge shortfall, it was vital for major companies to send experienced and qualified personnel.

The employees involved in this equation were typically older and more experienced, having already established themselves in their field at home. Their motivations for coming to China could be termed as a 'push', their companies sending them to the mystic east to cash in on the potential. The majority were not drawn by the bright lights of Beijing or Shanghai. In fact, those lights had yet to be even turned on – China was still something of a tabula rasa for modern business. The new generation, on the other hand, is experiencing much more of a 'pull' factor.

China now has much more to attract employees from overseas – they no longer need the stimulus of their company dispatching them to some remote, under-developed Asian outpost. In the years between the first and second generations arriving in China, the country has undergone some drastic changes. The expansion witnessed in the past decade was unprecedented and created a far greater spectrum of opportunity. Major companies are, of course, still sending experienced employees out here. However, now there is also a large amount of westerners coming out in search of experience and opportunity.

The differences in the two generations are stark. For the first, the decision to come to China was more to do with company growth. For the second, the onus is on personal development. Whereas the class of ‘94 was likely to have already made their mark and established themselves within their company, the class of 2009 still has everything to prove. Many of them are fresh graduates or young professionals looking to make their mark in the Middle Kingdom. With the financial crisis still restricting opportunities for them at home, they see China as a chance to secure a job they might not find at home and to accrue the type of experience that will stand them in good stead for the future.

The irony of the whole situation is that many of the themes involved in this new wave of migration have a decidedly Mandarin flavor – the Americans coming over have a lot in common with many Chinese. First, over the past decade, particularly in the build up to the Olympics, we saw huge migration from the western and central regions of China to the major metropolises on the east coast. Obviously, American graduates are not exactly the same as migrant workers from deepest Hubei, but they are both drawn by the same bright lights in Pudong and Wangfujing. Second, many of the Americans involved are young and fresh out of full-time education and finding their opportunities at home limited. This is also true in China, as 6 million graduates battle it out for an ever-dwindling supply of jobs. However, unfortunately for Chinese graduates, they do not have the option of making the return journey home.

Special Topic: Finding and Keeping Jobs in China

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