Big data shows Beijing attracts talent by most opportunities

Despite high home prices and air pollution, more professionals decided to stay in Beijing than leave in the past five quarters as the country's capital offered most job opportunities, according to figures released on Tuesday.

Beijing took 26.11 percent share of the total nationwide talent demand, dwarfing all other cities, including second placed Shanghai and third spot holder Shenzhen, beating them by 5.51 and 15.35 percentage points, respectively.

The higher percentage means more job opportunities a city can provide, which in turn indicate that talent is drawn to opportunities, said a report based on demand and supply as well as flow of talent in Beijing in the first quarter of 2017 published by Liepin, an online job search company.

The conclusions echo with the results of a survey conducted among professionals in Beijing by Liepin. More than 45 percent of the 7,000 respondents said they wanted to work in Beijing and 48.96 percent cited "abundance of opportunities and vast room for development" as the main attractions.

High demand translates into big supply. Beijing also topped the talent supply rank, taking up 21.36 percent of the nationwide total. Shanghai, 2.35 percentage points lower than Beijing, and Shenzhen, 14.35 percentage points lower than the capital city, took the second and third spots, respectively.

Internet was the biggest driver of both supply and demand among all industries in Beijing, with 47.28 percent of the total demand and 32.04 percent of the total supply in the capital city coming from internet.

According to professionals, one of the biggest factors that attracted them to Beijing was the high salary. Beijing, with an average annual salary of 230,300 yuan ($33,409), took the No 1 spot among top 20 cities, following by Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou, said Liepin.

The report also said that most professionals in Beijing came from neighboring province of Hebei, with populous Shandong province in East China contributing the second biggest flow of human capital.

However, Beijing falls far behind, including second-tier cities in East China, especially Hangzhou, the host city of G20 last year, in retaining talent.

Liepin's data showed that most professionals who left Beijing in the first quarter of 2017 mainly went to other first-tier cities, with 18.63 percent moving to Shanghai, the biggest destination for Beijing's outflow talent.