Talents in demand: Guangdong releases list of urgently needed talents

On August 17, a list of talents urgently needed in 9 Guangdong cities within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) was officially released. According to the list,the need for highly educated talents is now trending upwards, especially for the manufacturing industry, and in the coming 3-5 years, skilled workers will be most in-demand.

Press conference held by Guangdong Human Resources and Social Security Department.

Data involved in the list derives from over 17 thousand enterprises above the designated size in Guangdong cities within the GBA, covering altogether 26 industries including 7 strategic emerging ones, among others.An aggregated 57.7 thousand employment positions, of 316 types and 403 specialties, are now vacant, awaiting an estimated over 331.7 thousand talents.

In general, the greatest need comes from the manufacturing industry, which accounts for more than half of all.

The demand for highly educated talents is noticeably soaring, with overall proportion of university graduates rising from 14.55% to 20.9%, and of postgraduates, 2.08% to 3.33%.

Specifically, such industries as finance, scientific research and technical services, education and training, have jaw-dropping demand for graduate degrees and above, the proportion of which has reached 85.48%, 62.13%, and 54.65% respectively. Industries like accommodation, catering, and manufacturing, on the other hand, have the highest proportion of vocational school graduates and below, a whopping 93.53% and 92.93% respectively.

On the list, the top 30 high-demand positions mainly involve tech R&D, trade, marketing, as well as administration and management. And No.1 goes to product developer, after which are software engineer and sales manager.

The most needed specialties include mechanical design, manufacturing and automation, information and computing science, marketing, mechanical engineering, and economics, etc. While for medicine, literature, and education, the need stands comparatively low.

InGuangzhou, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai, where high-tech and advanced manufacturing are the economic mainstays, technical positions such as programmer or software engineerare in most urgent need.

While inFoshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, and Zhaoqing, positions like product developer, assembly engineer, and workshop mangerare suffering the greatest shortage since these cities rely largely on general manufacturing industry. However, all of the nine cities share a lack of proper sales force despite certain differences.

In the future 3-5 years, the need for skilled workers will predominate, followed by specialized talents and managerial personnel. Developers, software engineers, and sales managers will remain vital in several strategic emerging industries.

"Looking forward, we will phase the development of the GBA, and release the list at regular intervals to convey accurately and timely the talent shortage information," said Zhou Cheng, deputy director of Guangdong Human Resources and Social Security Department. He also mentioned that the list will afterwards cover a wider range -from 9 cities to all 21 cities in Guangdong.

Author: Ray (intern)

Editor: Will, Jerry