​Report: Shanghai maintains largest talent pool in China

Tourists take photos at the Bund area of Shanghai. [Photo by Wang Gang/For China Daily]

According to the recent Shanghai Talent Supply and Demand Data Report released by the recruitment platform Liepin's Big Data Research Institute, Shanghai boasted the largest talent pool in China in the past three years.

The data showed that Shanghai accounted for the largest proportion of talents in the country from 2020 to 2022 despite experiencing decreases due to the COVID-19 epidemic. In 2022, Shanghai's proportion was 10.2 percent, higher than the second-place Beijing (9.18 percent) and Shenzhen (6.43 percent).

Talent is a top priority for urban development, and local salary levels are a key factor in attracting talents. Previously, affected by the epidemic, the talent pool of first-tier cities in China has declined. Some talents who have struggled in big cities chose to return to their hometowns to further their career development or moved to second-tier cities to live a less-pressure lifestyle. However, the report shows the attraction of first-tier cities for talents cannot be ignored.

In Shanghai, the rapid development of the technology industry has propelled its attraction of talents. Statistics on the distribution of talents in various industries in the city show that talents in the internet industry in Shanghai occupy the top spot, accounting for 17.76 percent of its total. In 2022, the scale of Shanghai's digital economy industry accounted for more than 50 percent of the city's total gross domestic product (GDP). The city's demand for talents in the internet industry has been strong and the talent gap brought by the industry's development has attracted many relevant talents to Shanghai.

First-tier cities represented by Shanghai have more attractive salaries, which is one of the key factors to attracting talents. The data shows that in the past three years, salaries have increased in all cities across the country. Among them, Ningde in Fujian province, with its world-leading energy industry, has  the highest salary increase of 21.24 percent in the past five year. In the ranking of salary increases, Shanghai and Beijing ranked second and third, with increases of 9.77 percent and 5.96 percent respectively.

In terms of salaries of high-end talents, the average salary in Shanghai in 2022 was 250,000 yuan ($36,525), far exceeding the national average salary of 153,400 yuan for high-end talents. In terms of industries, the salaries of high-end talents in the financial and automotive industries have great attractiveness in Shanghai and nationwide, ranking among the top three industries in salaries. The average salary of talents in Shanghai's financial industry has exceeded 300,000 yuan.

In addition, Shanghai has greater advantages in attracting cross-regional talents in such industries as the automobile, electronic communications, energy, and chemical industries, with a salary difference of more than 100,000 yuan compared with the national average.

High salaries attracted high quality talents with strong knowledge in their professions. According to the survey on talent backgrounds in the report, the working years of high-end talents in Shanghai are concentrated in five-eight years and 10-15 years, with talents with more than 10 working years accounting for 50 percent of the city's total. In terms of educational backgrounds, most of the high-end talents in Shanghai have bachelor's degrees, accounting for 56.76 percent of the city's total, while talents with master's and doctoral degrees in the city account for more than 30 percent of its total.

Recently, the phenomenon of cross-regional talent mobility has attracted great attention. According to the report, the rapid development of Shanghai's semiconductor, biomedicine, artificial intelligence, new energy vehicles, and other industries has brought a large talent gap, while its salary and salary growth are leading in the country. As a result, many talents from other cities choose these industries for employment in Shanghai.

In addition, Shanghai's financial industry ranked first as the high-paying industry in the city and the whole country, attracting 10.23 percent of the city's total inflow of talents.

The report also shows that in the past three years, the recruitment demand of enterprises in Shanghai has ranked first in the country, with the city's demand for talents in the internet, real estate, and automobile manufacturing industries being very strong in 2022.