Archive for the ‘China Labor Issues’ Category
Wednesday, August 16th, 2006
Despite all my griping about escalating salaries for young Chinese professionals in China, there is a disturbing fact that is difficult to igore: most Chinese are severely underpaid in their jobs. Lets' face it, the manufacturing model is built on a pyramid of bodies with the CEO on top, a ...
Posted in China Labor Issues | No Comments »
Thursday, July 20th, 2006
A couple days ago I had lengthy conversations with friends who run factories in Suzhou. The conversations were held separately, and yet the concerns were nearly identical: foreign-invested companies - mostly Western - were inflating wages in the Yangtze River Delta through negligence, ignorance and laziness.
One friend, a European, ...
Posted in China Labor Issues | No Comments »
Monday, July 17th, 2006
A friend is a General Manager (GM) of a small manufacturing company located in the Suzhou Industrial Park. Small in this case is about 30 people. His chief financial officer recently notified him she is leaving his company for another company that is paying nearly 40% more salary than his ...
Posted in China Labor Issues | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, July 12th, 2006
The China Economic Review cited in its 10 July 2006 article:
Some companies operating in China lose one in five top managers every year, according to a recent survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit and Heidrick & Struggles. The results, reported by the Financial Times, estimate top managers in China ...
Posted in China Labor Issues | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 5th, 2006
At a recent meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio with the Board of Directors of a manufacturing company , I was asked by one of the Board members about salary standards that would keep staff in a company.
I answered the typically American metric answer that seems the silver bullet Americans seem to ...
Posted in China Labor Issues | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 4th, 2006
-from Suzhou
A few days before our program with the University of Notre Dame International Executive Education Program in China, I was chatting with a friend about his role in our session. The University hosts the program about three or four times a year. My company Silk Road Advisors handles the ...
Posted in China Labor Issues | No Comments »
Thursday, June 15th, 2006
-from Suzhou
Yesterday I read in the Financial Times a China article “Wage Inflation in China Hits Hiring”that confirmed feelings I already had and anecdotes I have been hearing about the hiring market in the “hot” economic areas in China. Namely, it’s the employees’ market right now. Requirements for Chinese with ...
Posted in China Labor Issues | No Comments »
Monday, May 8th, 2006
-from Beijing
I recently read in the April 2006 edition of China Economic Review that in Shanghai people in their twenties change jobs an average of every 17 months. It’s no wonder that foreign-invested companies are finding their number one challenge to be employee retention. Statistics seem to indicate, though, that ...
Posted in China Labor Issues | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 19th, 2006
A key understanding for Western companies building a business in China is that the Chinese model for all their interactions in life is the family. Relationships are built in concentric circles that begin and end with the family: childhood friends, classmates, co-workers. Those are the circles that define and circumscribe ...
Posted in China Labor Issues | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 18th, 2006
A recent survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai showed that employee retention is the most pressing matter for American companies.
One of the most difficult parts of building a business in China as a foreigner is keeping talented people. Finding the people is not difficult: for one, ...
Posted in China Labor Issues | No Comments »
