Some unfortunate bosses can expect to receive a hoard of resignation letters in the next few weeks following the Spring Festival holiday.

Human resources experts have forecast a job-hopping spree.

A man surnamed Ma who runs a foreign trade company in Shanghai said he found many seats in his office were empty on February 25, the first working day after the holiday.

"Only about one-third of employees showed up for work," said the boss of the Shanghai Morning Post.

However, Ma is not alone in watching over an office depleted of staff.

A survey shows that 37.65 percent of white-collar workers planned to start working for a new employer after the festival. The survey was conducted by ChinaHR.com, one of the country's leading HR media outlets, which covers more than 700 white-collar businesses in 15 industries.

Some companies have had to recruit interns to fill the vacancies. Some of these interns will be able to earn 200 yuan (US$24) per day until a permanent replacement can be found.

"I hope to start a totally new business in the new year," said a 30-year-old Shanghai man, who quit his job at a local publishing house soon after the Spring Festival. He declined to give his name.

The reason he quit was that the pay was not good enough, and in fact, lower than his girlfriend's.

With the booming number of blogs on the Internet, there are now more ways of knowing what other people earn, and this is fuelling job-hopping.

Recently, websites such as sohu.com, set up special sections for people to "divulge their salaries". The result was that the incomes of almost all industries were exposed.

"Of course, after comparing the incomes of other people in similar positions, most people would feel a little frustrated and unsatisfied with their bosses," said a young man working for a website, who asked not to be named.

But money is not the only reason.

More than 20 percent of respondents in the survey said Spring Festival provided an opportune time to think about their careers and prospects.

The survey found job-hopping would probably spike in the middle of this month.

Another survey by Zhaopin.com, showed 37 percent of respondents wanted to find better opportunities in the spring job market after getting their yearly bonus.

Some companies, however, are taking steps to combat this problem.

"The peak of job-hopping appears after the payment of the yearly bonus, so some companies especially those in sales, postpone the payment. Some even pay the bonus as late as April to prevent the collapse of the sales team," said Simon Li, a HR manager of an international company.

(China Daily March 6, 2007)