Shanghai has emerged as the No 1 city in China for net talent inflow, according to the newly released 2025 Ranking of Chinese Cities by Talent Attractiveness.

The report, jointly released by recruitment platform Zhaopin and financial research agency Zeping Hongguan, ranks Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen as the three most attractive cities for talent in 2024. It also notes that talent continues to concentrate in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions.

Shanghai led the nation with a net talent inflow ratio of 1.3 percent, followed by Shenzhen at 1.2 percent (unchanged from last year), Guangzhou at 0.8 percent, and Beijing at 0.4 percent. The report reveals that most of the talent moving to Shanghai came from Beijing, while those leaving Shanghai primarily moved to Beijing, Hangzhou, and Suzhou.

The report attributes Shanghai's strong appeal to its robust economy, competitive salary levels, favorable new economy promotion policies, and increasingly flexible talent attraction measures. In 2024, the city saw a year-on-year increase of 166,000 in its registered permanent population.

Regarding overall talent attractiveness, Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen were followed by Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuhan, and Wuxi in the top 10.

The data also shows that fresh graduates and those holding a master's degree or higher are more likely to seek jobs in first- and second-tier cities. In 2024, 17.4 percent of fresh graduates and 23.2 percent of postgraduate-level job seekers submitted resumes to first-tier cities, 2.0 and 7.8 percentage points higher, respectively, than the proportion of mobile talent heading to these cities. About half of both groups preferred second-tier cities.

Young talent dominate the mobile workforce, with those aged 18 to 30 accounting for 67 percent of mobile talent in 2024, compared with 61 percent of overall job seekers.

As for industries, 55 percent of mobile talent sought jobs in IT and internet, real estate, and manufacturing. Notably, amid an ongoing adjustment period in the real estate sector, the share of talent seeking jobs across cities has remained high in recent years.

Source: Shanghai Observer