Key Finndings
1. The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region is in the leading position of digital economy across China in terms of both scale and growth rate, and it is playing a pivoting role in China digital economy development, in particular, the development of integrated digital economy.
2. The top five industries that have the most talent density in the YRD region are: manufacturing, architecture, software and information technology, education and retail. In comparison with national level job market, software and information technology has very high employment rate, which is just behind manufacturing and architecture.
3. Based on LinkedIn members public data, in the YRD region, top talent is concentrated in five industries: Information and Communications Technology (ICT), manufacturing, corporate services, consumer goods, and financial services. From a talent perspective, the top industries featuring the highest degree of digital transformation are manufacturing, ICT and integrated digital economy. The education background of top talent and digital talent in YRD region is very diversified. 30% of the talents have education background from overseas, Hongkong, Macau and Taiwan, and over 35% hold master’s degree and above.
4. In Shanghai, the industry distribution of top talent and digital talent is relatively even, ICT and manufacturing have the most talent density. Talent in Shanghai has very high level of digitalization. The city is also built on a solid talent foundation of consumer goods, retail, healthcare, education and financial services. These have taken the city to the leading position of talent and industrial development in the YRD region.
5. Based on the talent distribution inindustries, Zhejiang province exhibits equal focus on basic and integrated digital economy. There are gaps in development among major cities in the province. Hangzhou focuses on ICT development. There are 45% top talents and 43% digital talents in Hangzhou ICT industry. Whereas Ningbo intensively develops in the digital manufacturing, and 42% of the talents come from this industry. Jinhua focuses on consumer goods and retail.
6. Jiangsu province shows a higher percentage of top talent and digital talent in traditional industries, and a brilliant development of integrated digital economy with the manufacturing industry standing out in particular. There are no substantial differences in development among major cities in the province. Apart from Nanjing’s unique focus in ICT, the development in Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou is generally led by manufacturing. In particular, there are more than 50% digital talents working in manufacturing in Changzhou.
7. Anhui province has a smaller reserve of top talent and digital talent. Taking Hefei as an example, top talents are distributed in ICT, education and manufacturing, but they express lower level of digitalization.
8. YRD region has maintained attractive to top talent and digital talent from domestic regions and overseas, Hongkong, Macau and Taiwan. In particular, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou have higher level attractiveness in general.
9. In national level, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Wuhan, and Chengdu are top destinations for talent migration. While in the YRD region, the main destinations for talent inflow are Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou. Although, from an inflow/outflow ratio perspective, Shanghai, Jinhua and Ningbo express substantial advantages. Hangzhou becomes the most attractive city for domestic digital talent. On the other hands, other cities are suffering from net outflow of digital talents such as Nanjing, Hefei and Changzhou.
10. Major cities in YRD region tend to attract more senior-level talent and export more junior-level talent. On the contrary, Shanghai attracts more junior-level talent and exports more senior-level talent. This indicates that the city plays an important role in training and developing talent to support other regions.
