THE MARKETS

Job Market Buoyed

In 2011, there was consistent growth in salaries across various industries in China as multinational corporations continued to expand into the country, said a recent report by Robert Walters, a world-leading recruitment consulting firm.

Talent shortages coupled with the large number of job vacancies meant that talent retention became a key challenge for numerous organizations.

Jobs advertised in China in the fourth quarter of 2011 shrank by 3 percent from the previous quarter. Nevertheless, Chinese companies are still looking to grow, as demonstrated by a 20-percent increase in job advertisements from the fourth quarter of 2010.

"The outlook in China is cautious yet upbeat as we enter 2012, despite the modest slowdown at the end of last year," said Carter Yang, Managing Director of Robert Walters China. "Recruitment activity is likely to resume as job churn increases after bonus payouts in the first quarter of 2012."

Powerful Merger

China's two largest online video websites Youku and Tudou plan to merge through a stock swap to forge an industry leader in the world's biggest Internet market.

Youku is listed at the New York Stock Exchange while Tudou issued an initial public offering on the Nasdaq market in August 2011. Once the deal is completed, Tudou will delist its shares.

The new entity, named Youku Tudou Inc. will control more than a third of the country's online video advertising market, according to the Internet research firm Analysys International.

The merger came as a huge surprise as Youku had in February filed a lawsuit against Tudou, claiming that it suffered losses because Tudou accused it of misusing copyrighted material.

"We expect to see significant synergies across a number of areas including leveraging licensed content over a larger user base and realizing efficiencies in bandwidth management," said Victor Koo, CEO of Youku.