Expatriate Forums in China

newportc · Joined: 07 Mar 2008 Posts: 34 Home Country: china

Prepared By: Alex Chua
Company Name: NewPort Real Estate

Expatriate pay to go closer to local rates, By Yan Zhen (Shanghai Daily), Updated: 2008-03-19 09:20
Expats working in Shanghai are likely to be paid more than local employees get in pay and benefits, but less than the full expat salary packages in other cities in the world, a recent survey shows.

Nearly three-quarters of employers in Shanghai offer a "living allowance" package to expats, the highest percentage of three cities surveyed. Only 45 percent of the respondents in London said that expatriates in their companies would get a living allowance while only 40 percent would in Denver, the United States.

The survey reported that most of the companies surveyed in the three cities anticipated that more employees would be paid wages and expenses closer to local rates as their companies expanded over the next five years.

But the process would take longer in Asia and Europe than in the United States, the survey reported.

About 40 percent of the respondents in Asia and Europe reported that their companies were more likely to pay an employee local wages and allowances only after they had been on assignment for five or more years.

Shanghai now has more than 70,000 expatriates and another 70,000-plus returned overseas Chinese working in the city, the Shanghai Personnel Bureau said on Tuesday.

Expats vote Singapore, Copenhagen top places: survey, Tue Mar 4, 2008 4:14am GMT

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Asian expatriates have ranked Singapore as the best place to live in the world for its safe and clean environment, while Europeans chose Copenhagen, a survey showed on Tuesday. Asian expats chose Singapore over Hong Kong (15th place) and Shanghai (78th place) and placed Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra as well as two Japanese cities Kobe and Yokohama in their top ten list of favorite locations, said ECA International, a human resource consultancy for multinationals.

Lee Quane, general manager of ECA International, said that Singapore's solid infrastructure, low crime rate and clean air made it a favorable place to live. "While Hong Kong has seen an improvement in some categories, such as personal security, air pollution remains the biggest cause for its lower rankings relative to Singapore," Lee said in a statement.

Singapore is competing with Hong Kong as a location for banking and financial services. For locations in China and India, Shanghai and Chennai (138th place out of a total of 300 locations) came in top for Asian expats, said the annual survey. European expats ranked Copenhagen as their top choice to live in the world. They placed three Swiss cities -- Geneva, Basel and Bern -- and three German cities -- Dusseldorf, Bonn and Munich -- in their top ten.

China's International Schools Are Growing, US-China Today (03/07/0 Cool

Chow, Jonathan
The growing number of expats working in China has fueled growth in the number of international schools available to educate their children, often offering instruction in English but with required lessons in the Chinese language as well. This has meant school teachers are joining the groups of people seeking new opportunities in the booming country, say Patrick Frerking of Concordia International School Shanghai: "It’s a happening place; it’s an exciting time to be there. Teachers, like businesspeople, want to be a part of that. So it’s a pretty aggressive market in some ways right now for the teacher recruitment." Some Chinese international schools have become among the most prestigious primary and secondary schools anywhere, while new ones are opening up all the time: "[At] no time in the history of international schools … has there been such a dynamic and explosive growth of international schools as what’s happening here in China right now," Frerking says. The schools provide education on par with that of elite private schools in the United States and Europe, modeling their curricula on British and American schools' and offering International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement programs. Chinese municipal governments are also aware of the economic benefits of having international schools, including the boost they provide to the housing market. Right now, the country's government is working on enhancing international school communities in its second-tier and third-tier cities to improve investment opportunities in parts of China that are relatively undeveloped so far. Information Source

Expat Lifestyles Take a Hit, HR Magazine (03/0 Cool

Vol. 53, No. 3, P. 50; Grensing-Pophal, Lin
The U.S. dollar has fallen in value compared to foreign currency, forcing companies to change the way they pay expatriate workers. The dollar fell over 25 percent against the euro in the last five years, and recent changes to U.S. tax law increased the taxable portion of expat worker salaries and placed higher taxes on housing allowances. For many years, being relocated to another country was financially beneficial because the dollar was strong, allowing expats to spend far less living in other countries. Work overseas is in high demand, but companies must offer higher salaries to attract workers to those positions. Meanwhile, companies are removing workers from their U.S. balance sheets to that of the host country location to reduce moving expenses related to those workers. Other steps companies are taking include shortening expat assignments, assigning local employees to positions that do not necessarily need expats, and offering permanent overseas posts to expats. Some experts suggest creating a split payroll program where a certain percentage of an expat's salary is in U.S. dollars, with the remainder paid out in the local currency. However, foreign assignments are still sought after by American workers because of promotion potential, though the number of Americans in the Middle East and Asia has declined.

Shorter Overseas Stints for Expats as Firms Try to Save Money, Time (Global Interest), Singapore Business Times (02/11/0 Cool

Ping, Oh Boon
A survey of 348 human resource executives by KPMG last year shows that the cost of international postings is prompting many companies to rely more heavily on short-term assignments. The survey found that 49 percent of respondents felt international assignment programs "take too much time and effort to administer," slightly up from 2006's 48 percent. Eighty percent of the HR executives said that they now prefer to send workers overseas on short-term assignments; another survey released last September showed that respondents expected their companies' use of short-term postings to increase over the next 18 months. "The increasing number of short-term assignments requires companies to take a look at their international assignment programs as traditional long-term expatriate policies often fail to adequately support the needs of the business or assignee," says KPMG Executive Director Ooi Boon Jin.

EXODUS TO ASIA: Research Opportunities Abound, Julie Clayton, United States, 21 March 2008
Science and technology is booming in Asia, and acting as a magnet for Asian scientists wishing to return home after training in the West—especially to China—attracted to full- or part-time positions in both academia and industry. Promoting the eastward migration is a strong government push—particularly in China, Singapore, Korea, and Japan—to become global players in science and technology, and massive investment from the pharmaceutical industry. The result is a heady mix of new R&D opportunities.

Yet the "returnees" are only one side of the story. Also finding new opportunities are Western scientists wishing to work in Asia—including academics taking up professorships at Chinese universities. At the same time, scientific institutions in the West are keen to seize the new opportunities for research collaboration in Asia. All of this means that Asia is now enjoying a significant brain-gain.

The Road to China
Several major international pharmaceutical companies are expanding their research and development in China. The city of Shanghai, which has become a mecca for science generally, is now home to both a growing local pharmaceutical industry as well as international companies like Roche, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, GlaxoSmithKline, and AstraZeneca. Consequently, research opportunities go beyond the R&D pipeline to include drug manufacturing, clinical research, quality assessment, and quality control.