One dreary winter evening in Shanghai, I had an opportunity to share a taxi with a young executive of a joint venture company. Stuck in the city's horrible traffic gridlock, we had plenty of time to talk about a wide range of topics, ranging from the weather to family to work.

Her seemingly boundless confidence about her future reminded me of the many young men and women I met in Hong Kong in the 1980s when the economy there took off in earnest. She talked fast in mandarin, laced with English words and phrases, and her manner was self-assured.

It made me wonder if we can see in her the soul of an entire generation of Chinese, or just a member of an elite minority in the mainland's most cosmopolitan city. I will let you be the judge.

With a journalism degree from one of the top universities in Shanghai, she got a job at a local television station as a news reporter upon graduation. After a few years there, she was given the city hall beat supposedly in recognition of her seniority and capability. But that was not what she wanted and she quit even before finding a new job.

"I just walked out because I knew that I could easily find a job," she said. And that she did, within a couple of months.

High staff turnover rate is, of course, one characteristic of a booming economy. The staff turnover rate at multinational companies on the mainland is estimated to be as high as 17 per cent. As a result, staff retention has become the priority in human resources management at many foreign enterprises.

The loss of experienced staff is particularly troublesome to companies in the services sector. The hotel industry is hit the hardest as many international brands have embarked on ambitious expansion plans not only in Beijing and Shanghai but also in many second tier cities. "The demand for experienced staff in our industry far exceeds the supply," said Anthony Leung, a senior vice-president of Jin Jiang International Hotel Management Co, one of the largest hotel chains in China.

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Hong Kong, with an unemployment rate that seldom exceeded 2 per cent, enjoyed virtually full employment. Job hopping was common among young workers as companies were raising wages to attract not only managers, professionals and sales people, but also secretarial and other support staff.

This seems to be happening in Shanghai and some other major mainland cities and many social commentators have criticized young workers for their fickleness in changing jobs.

To be sure, frequent job change is not good for one's career and, perhaps, too many young workers switch from one job to another for nothing more than a few hundred dollars increase in monthly pay. But there are those, like this young woman in the taxi, who use the opportunity to find a new career.

This freedom of choice for one's career has to be one of the most welcome benefits arising from two decades of economic reform and market opening. Such a choice tends to give young people the confidence to pursue an ever-higher quality of life, just like my taxi partner.

She talked about buying a bigger apartment in a location closer to the university where her husband taught. Although property prices in Shanghai have remained high despite the latest correction, she said that if they didn't buy now, prices would go even higher in the near future.

That sounded like what a young Hong Kong person would have said before the outbreak of the Asian financial crisis in late 1997 which broke the back of the property market there. These home-buyers were not responsible for creating the property bubble. They were the victims of excessive speculation when the bubble burst.

Taking a lesson from Hong Kong, Shanghai, perhaps, should try to help these young people to buy homes with government guaranteed loans at favourable interest rates.

This could be an effective way of attracting more young people to come to live and work in Shanghai, where the need for new talent will remain high as the city develops into a world-class services centre.

Email: jamesleung@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 12/02/2005 page4)