Sean Li, director of Robert Walters Shanghai, told Recruiter that although many companies suspended their operations until 9 February, “there is still some jobseeking and hiring taking place”.

Li said that following the extension of the Chinese New Year holiday by the government until 9 February, Robert Walters staff had been working from home. “This has been enabled through the use of technology, with interviews taking place via apps such as WeChat and Skype,” he explained. Robert Walters has four offices in mainland China: Beijing, Suzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai (pictured), and one in Hong Kong.

Hays, which has offices in Beijing, Guanzhou, Shanghai and Suzhou, said in a statement: “Staff and their family members’ health & safety is our main priority. It’s a fast-changing situation and we will continue to provide our staff with best practice to safeguard each and everyone’s well-being. Our offices have taken, and will continue to take, all necessary measures to protect colleagues’ and customers’ health & safety.”

In a statement, PageGroup said: “PageGroup is monitoring the current situation in China very closely. We are following the advice of local authorities and will be taking necessary steps to protect the health of our employees and customers. Any action we take will have the best interests of these two groups in mind.”

Hays said it will await an announcement by the Chinese authorities before re-opening its offices, and in the meantime, “it will endeavour to respond to our customers’ needs and questions via phone calls, email or video as soon as possible”.

Kieron Nolan, managing director of education recruiter Ignite Recruitment, based in Beijing, told Recruiter that the office block where the company is based had been closed.

“All communication is via telephone, email, WeChat and Skype, with no physical meetings taking place. I would not expect things to change for the foreseeable future,” said Nolan. 

Wenjing Li, commercial director at Cubiks, a talent management and assessment company in Shanghai, said that despite the outbreak of coronavirus, a recent survey on job board Zhapin.com indicated that 44% of organisations do not expect to scale down their hiring, and that they will rely more on online and virtual channels for assessing and selecting talent.

Li said that conversations with HR leaders of Cubiks’ clients indicated that some back to work dates have been extended to 14 February or even 17 February, with employees being encouraged to stay at home. They said HR leaders’ priorities were to track the health status of employees and to adjust their emergency plans. 

Despite there being no sign that the spread of the coronavirus has been contained, education recruiter Nolan said that having spoken to teachers, “the consensus is that they are still looking to move to China”. However, he continued, “most are going to delay travelling for at least two months, giving them breathing [space] and allowing them to monitor the situation”. He said one employer he knows of delayed a new employee’s start date by at least two months. Nolan said that parental pressure will be a key factor in candidate’s decision-making after the outbreak is contained.

David Taylor, MD of specialist telecoms and technology recruiter at First Point Group, which has offices in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, said that so far the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on its business have been “negligible”, as the vast majority of its Chinese contractors worked outside China. He said that with the company’s offices closed until at least 10 February some staff had treated it as an extended holiday, although “emergency work” such as payroll was continuing.

However, he admitted that if the situation were to continue for a protracted period of time, and if flights were to be stopped in an effort to contain the virus, this would make it difficult to continue to send its hundreds of Chinese contractors abroad. 

Taylor said that the UK government’s advice for UK nationals to leave China didn’t apply as with the exception of a small number who had lived in Hong Kong for many years, the company didn’t employ any UK citizens in the region. Li said that with its offices entirely staffed by Chinese nationals, Robert Walters was in the same position.

“It is still too early to determine the true impact on recruitment in China, and we will not know the full impact until normal business operations resume,” said Li. 

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