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Q: How many locals would be seriously employable in your country?
And if they managed to score a job, how long would they last?
As I get around in life here I marvel at how often I see people who are supposed to be working....like, they are at work....doing nothing at all.
I mean, are they supposed to be working or what? Is their job actually real?
Is it like this where you come from?
I know Chinese people are subjected to some stress in their lives, but it sure as hell doesn't come from their jobs!
Actually, most would do just fine.
They arrive before the boss, stay until after the boss leaves. They'll do what they're told (whether they understand the instructions or not) and will not bitch (but they'll leave without explanation if offered another job somewhere else with only slightly higher pay).
The problem comes with the holidays and sick days. They're used to prolonged holidays and being able to go to the doctor with just a sore finger or runny nose. They'll also expect you to hire everybody in their family and their grandmother (same for Indonesians, Filipinos and Malaysians).
I think it all boils down to the prime directive of leadership: lead by example. They see what their boss and managers do (or don't do) and they follow suit.
expatlife26:
Do you really think they feel entitled to long holidays?
I feel like China gets way less in the way of holidays than most other countries, even HK.
Sinobear:
I was thinking not of the "official holidays" - those of three days but the idea that some people (including school kids) that get to go home for a month (or more).
The U.K might have an abundance of holidays, but Canada is bereft of such an indulgence.
expatlife26:
hmmm, I do know people that have taken 2 months of unspecified (though unpaid) personal leave. And they have come back to their jobs.
I guess you're right that wouldn't fly back home I don't think.
Simple tasks and no responsibility. They would mess up vital jobs, but make excellent worker drones. The problem is, so many companies can't trust Chinese not to copy trade secrets and start for themselves, or just sell secrets for profit. Many Chinese I've met believe in one-dimensionality, so they will be destructive in the way they seek success, because they believe others must suffer for them to advance. This attitude is not unique to Chinese people, but it's very pervasive here.
If you first take away all the ones with BS jobs, obviously they have zero qualifications. BS jobs is e.g. the guy who stands by the entrance to a parking lot and hands people the parking card because people can't control their vehicles close enough to the box to get the card themselves.
Then you have the people who have some sort of education or training. I think many would do pretty OK for the reasons Sinobear mentions. I do have several Chinese friends back home, they all did they university part of the education in my home country, they are all perfectly functional (well, pretty much all) But e.g. a guy I worked with for a while, he would call in sick when his wife had a cold so he could stay home and cook soup for her...... We had a really retarded boss, had I been the boss that would not have been something that should happen as often as it did, and I really like the guy, unlike our racist a-hole of a boss.
When I worked, in the field of IT nerdery, I don't recall meeting a single "technician" who was capable of doing anything sensible. In China that is, I think the brightest people I met when working in Asia was in Taiwan. The people I meet now, it's all in non-work situations. One thing I've never seen in Asia is people who work for fun, everyone works for the money, I think that says a lot.
They would be alright at bottom of the line jobs requiring nothing else than following instructions but awful at jobs with responsibilities and requiring personal thinking.
Anyway smart Chinese have already emigrated or are in the process to do so, only the ones with no ambitions and no personality (puppets of the CCP) plan to remain in China until their death.
In IT, the large majority of the people I met are completely unemployable. They can use a very small set of outdated tools, and they are not spending time to self-learn other tools or technologies (it's vital in IT). At best, they can grok stuffs with an old version of a framework. Count how much framework/libraries/languages are made in a China, it's painfully revealing.
Our biotech lab technicians are quite good, they would need some cultural adaption. The biotech engineers are ok, but they are not very inventive, they follow procedures and that's it. Also, their communication skills need some training. The R&D guys were all trained in USA and worked there for more than a decade 
I think this might illustrate it.... I work in an Office building. An absolute Office building. Similar to the kind you would see in a First-world country. So, I am looking in the storage room one day and there is the chinese hot water heater and shower apparatus stuck back on a shelf. I pull out the shower bit, u know, the hose and handle/nozzle and walk back into the Office. I then go around to different parts of the Office, including the reception area (I mean right under the big company logo in the Main Reception Lobby), and act like I am trying to figure out where to mount the shower so we can enjoy a nice shower in the Office.
I swear this is true... Every Chinese employee in there, including the IT guy who doubles as mr. fix-it, followed me around to assist me in mounting the SHOWER in the Office.
Wow, double-wow, wow. I've seen a LOT of things in a pretty long life,,,, but f'kn Wow.
I know loads of local Engineers who spend a fair bit of time working abroad.
They hate it. Too expensive, cold, windy, wet and lonely.
Many of the guys (and women) I know who are doing this are more than capable of managing complex projects. But are they allowed to..... of course not. Because they cost a fraction of what their western counterparts cost.
It's nowt to do with ability, it's all about money.
If local engineers and managers are so shit, why are Chinese companies bailing out western companies and saving western jobs?
Who bought IBM's PC buisiness? Who bailed out Volvo?
Consider the Iphone as an example. Yup, designed in America ( to what extent.... I don't know), and no doubt Apple has managers dealing with Foxconn. But the tools and the machines used to make Iphones.... most are designed and made by Chinese companies with 100% Chinese staff.
Bankers don't really care about skills and local workforce, they want cheap. China provide that. And they have a massive resource of well trained expert engineers, technicians and managers to deliver it.
I have a lot of respect for my Chinese colleagues. And I hate to see how they get shafted by the western money men. If they were in the west they would be on 60k GB a year. But here... they are lucky to be paid 12K GB, and they are told to be grateful for it !!!!!!!!
Right.... rant over.... I'm off to the bar 
.
expatlife26:
Agreed, there are lots of talented people here.
Your average foreigner just probably doesn't spend a lot of time working with them.
I know of a place where the company is 10 yrs old...
the employees are all more than 8 yrs old..
recently they were looking for a new recruitment because the previous lady had to quit because she has to get pregnant. She been working there for about 7yrs...
Only if I had a Z visa 
I know of a guy, in Canada, who decided to quit....then changed his mind and decided just to quit working. showed up every day and did nothing. Union job at a huge steel and fertilizer place (Cominco - Trail BC) ....He went to work, got a cheque, for 2 years before somebody high enough up in the chain found out and got rid of him. Bureaucracy.. more trouble to confront him at the "local" level, than it was worth for his supervisor(
. this was in the 80's, when unions were still quite powerful... mostly beaten to death now. so he got his +/- $40000 for an extra couple years.
reminds me all the security guards and parking police and some street sweepers etc.
Tons of them, i mean not as a percentage of the whole but credit where it's due there are definitely really smart people here who would stand out at any company in the world. I work with a few of them.
Come on, on the local side do you really think ESL attracts the best and the brightest? No, they're off chasing high salaries/prestige in STEM fields at MNCs and financial institutions.
You might not know anybody talented here but they sure as hell exist.
Out of ALL of the Chinese I have met in the 8 years I have been here, in decent jobs I would say...
A small handful.
Seriously. But I am sure there are lots of smarter Chinese in Shanghai and Beijing.
I know a lot of people who are very capable, hard workers. I live in Beijing however, so I can't speak for the rest of the country.
It sounds like you're having a frustrating time with your colleagues.
royceH:
No, my colleagues give me a wide berth. We're all friendly but they don't have any influence on my day to day activities, nor I on theirs.
No, I mean the fact that I observe Chinese ppl in all sorts of work environments not actually doing anything. Unless operating their phone is doing something.
hunana:
A friend of mine told me that it's like a Chinese version of social welfare... there isn't any government aid available but they can employ five aunties to wash one window. So there is loads of over employment where people don't have any real responsibility or meaning to their jobs.
