Foreign-invested enterprises are entitled to determine their institutional settings and needs for personnel and to recruit employees in China on their own or entrust recruitment to professional staffing agencies.

Foreign-invested enterprises shall sign a written labour contract with any employed personnel. The labour contract must include the following items: the name, domicile, legal representative or the person in charge of the employer; the name, address and resident ID or other valid ID number of the employee; the term of the labour contract, the content and place of work, working hours, rest and holidays; labour remuneration, social insurance, housing provident fund, labour protection, working conditions, protections against occupational hazards, etc.

In addition to the essential content listed above, the employer and the employee are also entitled to include the probationary period, training for the employee, the employee's obligation of confidentiality, supplementary insurance, welfare, and other matters in the labour contract.

Labour contracts are divided into fixed-term contracts, open-ended contracts, and those with based on the completion of certain tasks. For labour contracts whose terms exceed three months but are less than one year, the probationary period is not to exceed one month; for labour contracts whose terms are more than one year but less than three years, the probationary period is not to exceed two months; for labour contracts with a fixed term of no less than three years or labour contracts with no fixed term, the probationary period is not to exceed six months.

In addition, foreign-invested enterprises are entitled to dispatch labour for temporary, auxiliary, or substitutable posts of duty. Dispatched labour shall account for no more than 10 percent of the total labour.