Firms jostle for managers in China as business booms

By Susan Fenton

HONG KONG (Reuters) - American-born Thomas Kwan's career has taken off since he moved to China to work as the country manager for a U.S. health products company.

"If I'd stayed in the U.S. I wouldn't have had the same opportunity for advancement," said trilingual Kwan, 46, who was brought up in a Cantonese-speaking household in Virginia and also speaks fluent Mandarin and of course English.

"The U.S. is still a Caucasian-dominated society," added Kwan, who now lives in Shanghai.

China's rapidly expanding economy has created a seemingly insatiable appetite for Chinese-speaking managers.

Yet even though 3 million university graduates enter China's workforce every year, multinational companies are finding it hard to find local talent to meet that demand.

Companies that are successful in luring top notch recruits are at an automatic advantage in the race for a piece of China's $1.3 trillion consumer market.

But competition for good quality hires, especially experienced managers, is fierce.

Companies in China will need 70,000 middle and senior managers over the next five years, according to executive search firm MRI Group, but they are unlikely to find them.