Talent pool brings flourishing growth

As a center for modern services in the region, the city is home to the Chengdu Financial Headquarters Business District.

Chengdu is now an attractive destination for talent in the service outsourcing industry, according to a recent report by respected human resource consultancy Kenexa.

Relatively low manpower costs and stability have become core advantages for Chengdu, according to a company report.

The manpower cost in Chengdu's service outsourcing is just 73.9 percent of that in Shanghai, 82 percent of the Beijing figure and 74.6 percent of that in Shenzhen, the survey by Kenexa shows.

It is also lower than the costal cities Hangzhou and Dalian.

With housing and living costs growing rapidly across the nation, the average salary for service outsourcing talent rose 12 percent nationwide last year. The figure in Chengdu grew a little bit faster than the national average, but compared to big cities in the east, the cost was still 20 to 30 percent lower.

As well, lower living costs mean purchasing power in Chengdu is much higher than that in first-tier cities and the eastern coastal area, an "extremely favorable" edge in attracting and retaining professionals, the report says.

It shows the average migration of service outsourcing talent in Chengdu to first-tier cities is 11 percent compared to the national average of 14 percent.

Chengdu now has 153,200 professionals employed in the service outsourcing sector, with the biggest groups working in research and development, production, management and marketing.

Most of the employees have a bachelor's degree or higher, with statistics showing increasing annual improvement in the overall quality of academic credentials.

Most of Sichuan province's major colleges and universities are located in Chengdu, with others in nearby cities, which together offer plentiful reserves of qualified human resources for enterprises.

The report also shows that technical personnel account for 81.61 percent of the total service outsourcing talent in Chengdu, while management personnel account for just 3 percent and other personnel take up 15.4 percent.

The majority - about 66 percent - work in the Tianfu Software and Incubation Park. Others are in several service outsourcing model parks in the Wuhou district, Jinjiang district and Qingyang district in the city.

The pillar industries of Cheng's service outsourcing sector now includes software development, R&D of communication technology, game and animation, engineering design and software maintenance and testing.

Other professionals work in outsourcing enterprises for databases, system integration, financial accounting, medical R&D, call centers and integrated circuit design.

hantianyang@chinadaily.com.cn