Shanghai offers over 5,000 postdoctoral posts to stabilise Chinese economy

In a bid to stabilise the economy, Shanghai, China’s economic hub, has offered vacancies for 5,157 postdoctoral positions with the highest annual salary going up to 7,00,000 yuan, according to a local media report. Shanghai Human Resources and Social Security Bureau on July 26 said that the openings are being offered by 259 postdoctoral programs run by 123 world-leading companies, top Chinese institutes and universities in the city, Shanghai Daily reported.

The institutes and universities include Pujiang Laboratory, the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Fudan University and COMAC. In May, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang underlined the importance of implementing policies for stabilising the economy and supporting market entities to bring the situation back to the normal track in an unusually stark warning that comes as COVID curbs have adversely impacted the second-largest economy.

Keqiang had painted a grim picture of the job market in the world’s most populous nation due to COVID-19 lockdowns. He had called the employment situation “complex and grave.” He instructed all levels of government to prioritize measures to boost jobs and maintain stability, CNN reported.

The positions are offered in key fields listed in the city’s future development strategy, such as biomedicine, new materials, chemicals, integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, as well as clinical medicine, biology, materials science, and computer science. Regardless of the candidates’ nationality, selected postdoctoral researchers will be paid up to 700,000 yuan annually, while most will be paid between 250,000 and 350,000 yuan, with a median of 300,000 yuan.

As of the end of June 2022, according to Shanghai Daily, there were 7,305 postdoctoral researchers in the city, 24 per cent of whom are foreigners, residents from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and Chinese mainlanders with overseas education backgrounds. Each year, China needs to add millions of new jobs to keep the economy humming. The government has set a target of creating at least 11 million jobs in towns and cities in 2022. (ANI)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)