Look to Greater China for e-Recruiting Opportunities: IDC

Greater China--including Hong Kong and Taiwan--is a rapidly growing, untapped workforce that could generate as much as $500 million in e-recruiting revenues by 2004, compared to under $5 million in 1999, according to a new report from global market intelligence and advisory firm IDC.

"Several factors in addition to the region's large population contribute to our belief that online executive search firms, online job boards, Internet media and services firms, and niche recruitment sites have an excellent opportunity to increase their business in Greater China," says Ellen Julian, IDC's director of career and learning services. "Like in other rapidly developing markets, enterprises in Greater China are experiencing a shortage of high-level managers and skilled individuals in a variety of vertical industries and occupations. These factors, combined with a loosening of government restrictions on the Internet market, make the region ripe for e-recruiting."

But recruiting firms hoping to reap the market will be faced with regional challenges, including evidence that Taiwanese and Chinese Internet users strongly prefer to surf the Web in their native languages.

In addition, the soft market in Internet advertising will pose a challenge to online recruiting firms, which often rely on advertising to generate revenue, according to Christopher Boone, an analyst for IDC's eRecruiting research program.

In spite of the challenges presented, IDC is optimistic about e-recruiting's potential in Greater China. "In the short term, job seekers and employers will be drawn to the Internet as a resource for recruiting," says Boone. "Longer term, they will be drawn to the Internet as a source of career management activities."

In "The eRecruiting Market in Greater China: Forecast and Analysis, 2000-2004", the Farmington, Mass.-based firm forecasts e-recruiting trends on both a national and global scale. The report also features discussions of current market drivers and inhibitors and listings of executive search firms, Internet media and services firms, online job boards, and targeted specialty sites serving the market.