On average, more than three people competed for one position in the human resources market during the first seven months of the year.

The ratio of job demand to supply is 3.41:1, according to the survey, which covers 37 major cities across China.

However, the imbalance does not mean the human resources market is overheated with more talents than needed, said Tang Jun, vice-director of the Department of Human Resources Exchange under the Ministry of Personnel.

Some of the applicants who registered for the human resources market already have jobs but want to find a better one, and the development of the human resources market offers job hunters more opportunities to move from one sector to another, Tang said.

But some sectors badly need talents while other sectors are nearing saturation point.

Sectors in need of talents include marketing, computer science, management and advertising, and the sectors offering limited job opportunities include real estate and international trade.

The lack of high quality talents has become a bottleneck for the development of fledgling sectors such as information technology (IT), said Yang Fuqing with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Most Chinese IT talents are computer science and electronics graduates of universities and colleges and more than half of them go abroad or work for overseas companies. Only a small number become IT professionals in such positions as software engineers, according to Yang.

Job hunters who possess a high educational background have a better chance to be hired. Those with a doctorate or master's degree are the top priority in many companies' recruitment plans, the survey indicates.

Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen rank as the top three favorite cities for job hunters, with the job demand and supply ratios for those cities reaching 5.75:1, 5.52:1 and 4.55:1 respectively.

(China Daily November 5, 2001)