By Matthew Murphy and Yu Du, MMLC Group, Beijing, China
The Beijing authorities, including the Beijing Human Resources and Social Security Bureau (www.bjld.gov.cn), Beijing Municipal Government Foreign Affairs Office (www.bjfao.gov.cn), and Beijing Education Committee (www.bjedu.gov.cn), issued a notice on 15 September 2014, to further tighten the municipal policy on the employment of foreigners. The notice is entitled the Notice related to Further Strengthen the Employment of Foreigners in Beijing (关于进一步加强北京市外籍人员聘用工作的通知).
As per the Notice, to obtain employment in Beijing, a foreigner is required to have (in most cases) a bachelor degree or above and no less than two years of related work experience (we note that Shanghai already requires two years, but that Guangzhou requires five years). For foreign teachers (language teachers excluded) though, no less than 5 years related work experience will be required. From 31 October 2014, foreign teachers need to provide his or her teacher qualification certificate issued by their home country. Those language teachers who do not have a teacher certification are required to obtain language teaching qualification certifications that are internationally recognised.
The Notice also requires those senior skilled foreigners who do not have a bachelors degree to be employed only for those urgently needed jobs that can not be filled locally within a reasonable time. In such cases, the applicant will need to provide evidence of their trade experience and other special skills that have been acquired over time, instead of evidence of education.
As far as age limits are concerned, the rule is that foreigners can only be employed in China, if they are aged between the ages of 18 to 60 as per the relevant national regulations. This has been confirmed by the Notice, however it us understood that the age restrictions can be relaxed where a person has extraordinary abilities and his or her employment of China will be of benefit to China.
Further, the entities engaging in education, research, journalism, publishing, culture art, health and sports are required to obtain a special qualification for the hiring of foreign experts, before actually hiring any foreign experts, according to the Notice.
The the government departments that issued the Notice have confirmed that they will strengthen the supervision of foreigners employment and residence, realize information sharing, and set up both foreigners employer credit database and foreigners career credit database.
