Bridging the Chinese Skills Gap
Despite vast numbers of IT graduates, suitable talent is hard to find.
Computerworld – SHANGHAI — Hankscraft Inc. has been making industrial motors and mechanized pumps for more than 50 years in Reedsburg, Wis. The company came to China just three years ago but already has twice as many employees here as it has at home.
Jonathan Funkhouser, who is general manager of Hankscraft’s China operations and who makes the top-level technology decisions, thought it was going to be hard to get all the government approvals he would need in order to set up shop in China. But that turned out to be the easy part. “Finding good employees and managers was the most difficult,” he says.
That’s not the only problem. Salaries have been climbing fast — 20% to 30% a year on average for IT managers, Funkhouser says. And turnover is high. During the past three years, he has hired five critical IT employees and lost three of them. “It’s been a very challenging thing for us,” he says.
Finding people with specialized IT skills, such as in-depth knowledge of secure systems, can also be tricky, says Celine Zhang, China human resources manager at Paris-based Hachette Filipacchi Medias SA. Hachette is the world’s largest magazine publisher, with titles such as Elle and Marie Claire and a presence in 39 countries.
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