The city plans to send recruiters overseas once again to fill top financial jobs in Shanghai, a senior government official said.

Huang Weimao, an official with the Shanghai municipal human resources and social security bureau, said on Sunday that the bureau is taking more Chinese enterprises, colleges and institutions to Washington in May for a job fair aimed at overseas Chinese graduates.

"We are collecting information about the types and number of talents that are most in need," Huang said.

"We need talents in information technology, life sciences, pharmaceutical, finance, modern services, and auto making," he said. "But still, we will target mainly financial talents."

Huang said that the compensation packages many Chinese enterprises are offering are similar to those in developed countries.

You Weishun, director of North America Chinese Scholars International Exchange Center, said that China should take advantage of the current economic situation to attract overseas candidates.

The economic recession has left more than 100,000 Wall Street workers unemployed. He estimated that 10,000 to 20,000 of them are Chinese, many of whom are willing to work in China.

"Plus their salary expectation has dropped almost to half, from about US$80,000 per year to about 300,000 yuan per year," he told the paper.

And Shanghai has always been attractive to overseas workers, according to Huang.

In 2008, more than 5,000 overseas Chinese graduates moved to Shanghai for a job, excluding Shanghai residents who graduated from overseas schools and returned home.

(China Daily January 13, 2009)