Shanghai a top city attracting university-educated talent

Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Beijing and Guangzhou are top cities witnessing a huge inflow of talents in the past 10 years, as Yicai reported on Thursday. The Chinese financial media outlet has analyzed data from 35 cities, including municipalities, provincial cities with a population of at least five million, those with GDP of over a trillion yuan ($156 billion) and Dongguan, a manufacturing city in Guangdong province.

In this regard, Chongqing, Xi'an, Zhengzhou, Hangzhou and Wuhan were also in the top 10. The report defined talent as people who graduated from a university. .

Compared to 2010, Shanghai has added 3.37 million people with talent as of 2020, obtaining the first spot in attracting exceptional individuals working in multinational companies and financial institutions. Shanghai also has outstanding capabilities in research and innovation. Meanwhile, as a leading city in the Yangtze River Delta region, Shanghai also attracted talent from the Yangtze River Delta, East and Central China and Yangtze River economic belt.

Another three cities with more than three million talents added during the 10-year period are Shenzhen, Beijing and Chengdu.

Beijing and Shanghai are the only two cities having more talent inflow than population increase. Shanghai has increased 3.37 million talents in the past 10 years, but only added 1.85 million residents at the same time. Likewise, Beijing has 3.01 million more individuals with talent compared with only 2.28 million residents added.

For every 100,000 residents, Shanghai has the highest increase in the number of talent recruited, followed by Shenzhen, Beijing and Hangzhou.

Manufacturing cities like Dongguan and Quanzhou, Fujian province are at the lowest end in attracting talent with university education.

Ding Changfa, associate professor for the economics department at Xiamen University, told Yicai that the local industry structure decides the practitioners' employment. Certain industries involving textile, shoes, hats and clothing in Quanzhou provide jobs mostly to migrant workers. Talents with a university degree in those fields are rare.