Citigroup to Hire up to 7,500 in China
September 1, 2010 Filed under Ahen
Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Officer Vikram S. Pandit speaks during the lunchtime address at the Global Financial Forum in New York in this April 26, 2010 file photo. Reuters Image
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Citigroup Inc plans to almost triple its workforce in China by hiring up to 7,500 people in the next three years, an executive told Bloomberg in an interview published on Tuesday.
Citigroup, which has 4,500 employees in China, will hire more in that country that in any other Asia-Pacific market, according to Bloomberg’s interview with Stephen Bird, Citigroup’s co-chief executive officer for the region.
The hiring plans will support Citigroup’s efforts to expand in the region and compete with HSBC Holdings PLC and Standard Chartered PLC .
Bird told Reuters last week that Citigroup planned to open two branches a month on average in China for the foreseeable future, the maximum allowed by regulators.
The company’s strategy “is progressively more weighted to emerging markets,” Bird told Reuters. “Greater China is the future.”
Citigroup plans to double its number of branches in Hong Kong to 50 by the end of the year and increase the number of branches on the mainland to 38 by the end of the year, from 29 currently.
A Citigroup spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. The company’s shares were trading up less than one percent, at $3.70, by mid-afternoon.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6801EC20100901
Rising labor costs make illegal immigrants attractive employees
April 6, 2010 Filed under News
By Han Manman
A labor shortage in Guangdong Province has attracted a growing number of foreigners who are smuggling themselves into China as cheap workers.
Most of the workers are coming in from South and East Asian countries like Vietnam, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, though a few come from as far as Africa. Factory bosses like them because they work hard for little pay, Guangzhou Daily reported early this week.
Workers maintain a low profile, as most are in the country illegally, the report said.
Chinese colleagues describe the workers as loners who are always wary of being targeted for a surprise inspection.
“They are hardworking and don’t mind suffering. They do the heavy, manual labor that most of us are unwilling to do. I heard that 1,000 yuan for them is relatively high pay in their home country,” one Chinese worker was quoted as saying of his 20 Vietnamese colleagues.
Most are brought into the country by human smugglers. The report said a few enter the country legally, but fail to leave after their passports or visas expire.
Many bus drivers are in on the smuggling. Before the bus reaches the entry and exit checkpoint, their human cargo is instructed to get off and take motorcycles around the checkpoint. After the checkpoint, everyone gets back on the bus.
Recent government figures show that Guangdong’s Pearl River Delta, the producer of nearly one third of China’s total exports, saw an exodus of 23 percent of its migrant workrs in 2009.
Domestic experts said the shortages can be attributed to government policies aimed at closing the income gap between the urban rich and rural poor.
“Many employers are turning a blind eye to illegal workers due to a shortage of domestic labor,” said an officer from Zhuhai Exit-Entry Administration Bureau who refused to be named.
Illegal immigrants flock to Chinese factories because of better opportunities and pay. Sometimes laborers sneak back soon after they are deported, he said.
The penalties are also too low to deter workers and employers. In Zhuhai, an employer will be fined only 5,000 to 50,000 yuan for hiring an illegal immigrant.
Fu Lang, director of Guangdong Foreign Affairs, said the provincial government is investigating its problems with illegal immigrants, illegal residents and illegal employment–what Guangdong has termed “the three illegals.”.
Police from Guangxi and Guangdong said they are tightening checks to crack down on illegal immigrants.
Earlier this month, 66 Vietnamese people without passports were intercepted on a bus bound for Zhuhai. The city deported 400 expats who entered or worked illegally in the city since last year.
Fu said illegal immigration will continue until the government steps up its regulation of expats.
He said the central government has paid great attention to the problem and the local government is working to legislate ways to improve its own management of foreigners.
Worried about U.S. debt? Send your donation here
Not sure what to give Uncle Sam this Christmas? How about a nice, fat check to help whittle away at the $7.6 trillion national debt?
The U.S. Treasury Department accepts gifts, payable to the Bureau of the Public Debt. Just mail them to the attention of Department G, Post Office Box 2188, Parkersburg, West Virginia, 26106-2188. Make a note in the memo section that it is a gift to reduce the debt held by the public.
Yes, really.
It’s all on the Treasury’s website, at the end of the list of frequently asked questions. here
Which raises a few more questions. Do people really send in checks? How much and what reasons do they give for voluntarily paying more than just their taxes? And why are the checks directed to a post office box in West Virginia?
According to Treasury spokesman Kim Treat, people do send checks. In the last fiscal year they added up to a little over $3 million, which was the highest total since at least 1996.
Some include notes. Common reasons for donating include a sense of patriotism and immigrants expressing their thanks to the United States for giving them an opportunity, he said.
The growing debt burden has become a more pressing political issue this year as the White House strains to pull the economy out of a deep recession and bring the jobless rate down from its current 26-year high of 10.2 percent.
The federal budget hole grew even deeper in October, according to monthly figures released on Thursday.
WHY WEST VIRGINIA?
As for why the checks go to West Virginia, the town of Parkersburg happens to be where the majority of public debt employees work.
It is a small city where “crime is low, happiness is high,” the Treasury boasts on its careers website (although it shows no public debt jobs currently open to the general public).
Parkersburg Mayor Bob Newell said having the public debt office there meant a couple thousand good-paying jobs, helping to insulate the city from the heavy manufacturing job losses suffered in nearby Ohio and surrounding areas.
He credits Senator Robert Byrd, who was elected to an unprecedented ninth term in 2006, with bringing the debt office to Parkersburg more than 30 years ago.
Workers there are responsible for a number of tasks beyond just managing the large and growing national debt, including tracking savings bonds and doing some accounting work for other government agencies such as the U.S. Mint.
Because of that, people in town don’t necessarily associate the public debt office with the debt burden itself, which has become an increasing source of angst, particularly among conservatives who are worried about rising government spending and how the debt will be repaid.
Newell said the “Tea Party” group, which has sponsored protests around the country against government spending, has held a few rallies in a downtown park between two of the city’s public debt office buildings.
“They’ll gather and have a little rally about the economy and the (bank) bailouts and, more recently, health care,” he said in a telephone interview. “They never relate it to the Bureau of Public Debt here locally. Frankly, it employs a lot of people and they realize that and they appreciate it.”
Getting Feedback From Chinese Audiences
July 9, 2009 Filed under Yu Shanshan
Comments Off
By Greg Bissky
During presentations Western audiences ask questions, Chinese don’t. But you need audience feedback to ensure they understand your points. What can you do? Absent a weapon how can you get Chinese to ask questions?
An easy, if time consuming way is quite simple: don’t leave. Chinese will ask questions, even good questions showing exactly what they don’t know, they just won’t do it in a group. You have to find a way to let them come to you alone or in small groups to ask.
If at some function, a hotel or such, just standing alone in the lobby after your presentation is often good enough. Chinese will circle around, in ones and twos, waiting for their chance to get you alone to ask questions. At an office is a little harder, and takes longer. Keep your office door open and encourage visitors works, as does wandering around, giving many opportunities for staff to find you alone and thus safe to talk to. Sharing tea or lunch works too, but is harder to arrange 1×1 or a very small group.
A senior European engineer once fulminated at length against this Chinese tendency, alternating between the lack of intelligence shown and the enormous costs it caused. His solution: sermons to the almighty machinery god, logic. His sermons fell on deaf ears.
Chinese want to do a good job! Like all people, Chinese employees do not go to work in the morning hoping to make mistakes and to get in trouble. The difference between Westerners and Chinese is in how they want to be taught. Westerners are ready to be taught directly: you made this mistake, this is why and this is how to do it properly. Moreover Westerners accept, even expect, group learning, using one person’s mistake to teach everyone at the same time.
Chinese want to learn, just in a way that does not cause anyone to lose face. What does “face” here mean? It means “embarrassment,” as in “He was embarrassed when his mistake was pointed out in front of his coworkers.” Like in so many other areas, the Chinese rule, the how has to right before Chinese will listen to the what, applies.
The engineer hated this answer, believing that training the Chinese way was inefficient, thus illogical. I agreed with him, to a point, but then asked him what was most important, that the Chinese did the job properly or that they learned in the proper way how to the job properly. Which was more important, process or result?
I just spoke at a conference of Compliance Professionals in San Diego. During the reception a man told me about their Chinese brokers seemingly adding unnecessary steps to the import process. I asked him what his objective was, the goods clearing customs in an acceptable timeframe or a process that was efficient. Sputtering he started to say they were the same, but finally admitted they weren’t, and that the acceptable timeframe was most important. Exactly.
I often don’t like, and sometimes don’t even understand, how Chinese do things. So? I care about goals, not methods. So should you. Early in our careers we all heard a variation of, “I don’t care how you get it done, just get it done.” Sadly the way Chinese “get it done” is often so different than Westerners expect that it, the way, becomes more important than the what, the result achieved.
Your goal inside China is not to change the Chinese, it is to achieve your goals. Focus on your goals and let the Chinese worry about how they achieve them. Yes, of course there are exceptions, but this is a general principle. Worry about your own goals, not Chinese methods.
