Time for city to make next leap, remove roadblocks: Recruiters

Recruiter Shi Lei sees the 2010 Shanghai Expo as a potential catalyst for companies to embrace greener technologies and reduce their carbon emissions, while also creating tens of thousands of new jobs.

"It's wrong to isolate the human resources issue from a company's developing strategies and market supply," Shi, general manager of China International Intellectual (Shanghai) Corporation, told China Daily.

"The Expo will of course create many new positions," he added, citing new vacancies in the construction and tourism industries, as well as the wealth of foreign investment that is expected to flood into the city.

With its theme of "Better City, Better Life", the May-October Expo will serve as an important platform to showcase new ideas regarding low-carbon-emitting products and services, he added.

This includes a fleet of more than 1,000 new-energy vehicles that the municipal government will roll out for the event as well as a heating system powered by river water.

Carbon emissions are expected to drop 30 percent during the six months of the expo - the first event of its kind to focus on weakening man's carbon footprint on the world - due to the kaleidoscope of energy-saving facilities in play.

The Expo will help spread green concepts, change people's way of thinking and make inroads in terms of new scientific and technological developments, Shi said.

When the 2010 Expo draws to a close, some of these low-carbon-emitting technologies may be put into practice in the Yangtze River Delta and its neighboring provinces, as well as in other Asian countries, said Xu Ding, an official with the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination.

This all means that the Expo, given its capacity as a significant platform for international communication, will help enterprises think twice about their developmental mode and thus adjust their talent portfolios, Shi said.

Shi, who was awarded HR Outstanding Achievement Award of Greater China 2009-2010 by Human Capital Management magazine earlier this year, also views the Expo as a means of transforming Shanghai's economy into one based on high-value-added services.

Until now, its main thrust has been the manufacturing sector.

He said more creative talent is needed to make the next leap, adding that a stifling culture of appraising people's skill based purely on the results of academic exams needs to be re-examined and revised, describing this as a "roadblock to further development".