Expats, Young Chinese Managers Alike Leaving Beijing If They Can; Rival Cities Pitch Clean Air
EDIT
The trend is anecdotal for the time being; nobody appears to have compiled any statistics yet, but human resources experts say the movement is clear and a handful of departures have attracted attention in the foreign business community. A senior lawyer for BMW and a top Volkswagen executive both insisted on being repatriated in January, and when anyone leaves “we inevitably hear, nearly every time, that one of the contributing reasons is the air pollution,” says Adam Dunnett, head of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.
The traditional outflow of expatriates in the summer, at the end of the school year, is “almost guaranteed” to be up on last year, predicts Max Price, China partner at Antal, an executive consultancy. But pollution is not the only reason, he points out; many international firms are increasingly replacing foreign executives with locally hired Chinese recruits.
That might become more difficult in the future, observers suggest. Some young Chinese executives, who have long seen Beijing as a high-paying mecca where the rewards are worth the hardships, are beginning to think differently.
Appealing to them are companies such as Meizu, a manufacturer of mobile phone handsets based in the southern seaside town of Zhuhai. Two months ago, the firm launched a “Blue Sky Recruitment” campaign in Beijing, placing ads in business tower block elevators around the city to tempt young IT engineers into moving south. “Do you dare to pursue a life with blue sky and white clouds?” read a Meizu poster at a Beijing jobs fair last week. “Welcome to air you can breathe with a PM 2.5 reading of 27.”
EDIT
