The government of Ningbo in mainland China hosted the three-hour job fair in a Hong Kong Grand Hyatt last month and managed to sign up 51 recruiters including universities, research institutes, state-owned enterprises, private firms and NGOs. They advertised 820 jobs with an average yearly salary of Rmb300,000 to Rmb500,000.
Five days leading up to the May 7 fair, an ad appeared on WeChat, China’s most popular social media site, seeking part-time actors. “You need to prepare a résumé and wait for an interview, which will be conducted for appearance sake,” the ad read. “Salary of HK$200 will be paid at the scene. Only nine places are left now. Add me [as a friend on WeChat] if you are interested. I will put you into a chat group.”
One recruiter told a South China Morning Post reporter, who had applied to be an actor as part of the newspaper’s own investigation, that Hong Kong’s unemployment is already low and that “it’s unlikely for such a recruitment fair to be popular here.”
“But every government has its performance goals,” the recruiter said. “There are some companies paying money to hire people to fill the room and make a lively scene,” the recruiter told the reporter. “In return, they will have [a] better relationship with the Ningbo government when they do their business there.”