More than 100 young people and businesses attended the third Beijing Career Day, organised by the Italian Embassy in Beijing with the Italian Chamber of Commerce and the Association of Young Italians in China.
It was opened by the Italian Ambassador, Ettore Sequi, and included a session of themed workshops and meetings with young people and company representatives. This year’s career day, an initiative to provide guidance, support and network opportunities for the increasing number of young Italians joining the Chinese job market, focused in particular on issues over work and trainee permits, employment contracts and the tax and insurance system.
Ambassador Sequi said: “The success of today’s initiative demonstrates the need for this kind of opportunity. The career day organised by the Embassy, with the help of the Chamber of Commerce and the Association of Young Italians in China, was developed specifically to meet the expectations of students and academic institutions and to meet the needs of companies to find and retain skilled human resources who are suited to working in a specialised market like China.”
Thanks to the cooperation with Almalaurea, a new development for the 2016 event, the young people attending the day had an opportunity to find out about all the inter-university consortium’s programmes for the Chinese market. As for the businesses, they were provided with an analysis of data on the enrolments of Chinese students in Italy, useful information with which to monitor the interest of young Chinese university students in completing their studies in Italy. The event also provided guidance on studying Chinese language and culture as a resource for entering the labour market, an overview of the experience gained by the ICE Agency in the vocational training of young people in overseas markets and the new developments introduced by the recent ratification of the bilateral agreement on the recognition of academic qualifications. With the contribution of Adecco, the students received practical advice on how to submit their job applications.
The workshop also provided an opportunity to assess the difficulties that companies and young people face in China. For businesses, these relate to the regulations on residence permits and the lack of coordination between universities and the business system, while for young people they stem from a limited knowledge of employment law and practice, visas and residence permits, and their consequences in terms of discrimination against young foreigners.
The Career Day ended with B2B meetings between businesses and young people. All the leading Italian sectors in China were represented: manufacturing, agri-food, tourism, consulting, training, inward investment. The main companies present included Luxottica, Pirelli, Sira Group, Giacomini, RDM Group, Ceramiche di Imola, Gartour, Tommasi Pretti Sport and the Italian Embassy School. These were joined by a number of universities, including the Global Management for China department of Ca’ Foscari University, Roma TRE University and the University of Naples L’Orientale.
A recording of the event will soon be available as a podcast on the Embassy’s website.
