More foreigners come to Shanghai to seek employment

More foreigners have come to this eastern metropolis to hunt for jobs in recent years, according to Shanghai Municipal Labor and Social Security Bureau (SMLSSB), which is in charge of issuing employment permission to locally-based foreigners.

At present, a total of 33,824 foreigners are employed in Shanghai and 15,537 of them received employment permission certificate from SMLSSB in 2004, up 40.2 percent year-on-year, said SMLSSB, which had issued a total of 65,459 permissions in past few years.

The number of Shanghai-based foreign employees has been growing in double digits over the past three years.

Statistics show these foreign employees come from 112 countries and regions. The top ten countries contributing the most human resources to Shanghai are Japan, the United States, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Germany, Malaysia, Canada, France, Australia and Britain

One third of the overseas employees come from Japan, indicating the importance the Japanese businesses attached to the Chinese market.

Of the 15,573 arrivals in 2004, some 9,950 have been employed by foreign-funded firms and 2,220 currently work in non-foreign-funded enterprises, a rise of 63.9 and 14.3 percent respectively. Meanwhile, representative offices and branches of foreign firms have hired 1,986 and 1,418 foreigners, accounting for 12.8 and 9.1 percent respectively.

Over half of the foreign employees entered service industry, whereas other job opportunities come from manufacturing, architecture, and financial and insurance industries, according to SMLSSB sources.

As foreigners swarmed to Shanghai, they were contributing more taxes to the municipality. Statistics with the Shanghai municipal taxes department show that foreigners paid some 1.6 billion yuan (some 194.9 million US dollars) in income taxes in 2004, or 14.28 percent of the city's total tax income.