Managerial salaries for the Mainland: still a long way to go

Angie Eagan

Today I listened to the interview Christine Lu of the China Business Network had with Angie Eagan of the HR-company Hudson, but who has a long career of China-related ventures. Really great stuff that give a good introduction to China and Shanghai, for companies and individuals thinking of entering the market. "Many companies entering the China market do not understand the competitive market and do not do enough due diligence," is one of Angie's one-liners that cannot be repeated too often.
Unfortunately, there was only little time to cover a wide range of issues, so, not surprisingly, I missed a few. The HR-market is very competitive, where - compared to ten years ago - competition is really killing and it would have been interesting to hear Angie's views on how her company is surviving itself in the killing fields of China's hr-industry.
In the past I have been investigating and writing much about this market; I'm still involved in the Wage Indicator project, and a few years ago I talked to many Chinese MBA-students and their motives for not returning to China. For the same job, they would earn much more in the US and in Europe, was their argument for not returning. Career perspectives were not that great.
Angie's companies offers really decent material on the managerial wages in China, and despite all the sweet words of Angie, the reality does not seem to have changed fundamentally over the past few years. Have a look for example at the salaries in the health care and life sciences for 2008. I'm most familiar with them, but estimate they illustrate the trend.
When you look at the first salary of VP or business development manager the salary ends up in the same region for both Japan and Hong Kong, a 150,00o euro. That would be comparable to the salaries in the US and Europe, although still a bit on the low end. Singapore is doing slight worse with 125,000 euro, but China only scores 80,000.
Of course, these are only averages, but why would somebody come back to China to earn only half of what they can earn elsewhere, especially now taxes and living expenditures in China's larger cities are also getting mature? As long as salaries are not comparable, complaining about a lack of experienced managers does not make that much sense.