Xu Ling, a student graduating in July from Beijing University is busy landing a job. On the top part of her resume, "To land a job in a company of Fortune 500 ", was highlighted in bold letters.

"Foreign enterprises offer decent salary, nice working environment, "said Xu. "Most importantly, I get to play to my full potential there."

For students like Xu, they value the career opportunity most in their first job after college. Xu targets foreign enterprises due to the experience from a friend who graduated in the same program two years ago and is working in Motorola China now.

Statistics with Beijing Foreign Enterprises Human Resources Service Co., Ltd (FESCO) showed, of over 60,000 employees in thousands of Beijing-based foreign enterprises they have contact with, female staff account for 46 percent.

A survey by the women's federation in east China's Suzhou city showed that females have occupied nearly 60 percent of the total employees in their industrial development park.

In Motorola China, industrial figures showed, female employees have accounted for 55 percent.

"These figures are very encouraging," said Zhang Yanzhen, Executive Deputy General Manager of FESCO.

In the last five years, the multinationals are pushing forward the "localization strategy" in China, Zhang said. More and more Chinese have joined in foreign enterprises, and taken on more important jobs. The number of women employees are increasing in this course.

Last year, female graduates who go through FESCO to foreign enterprises stand for 40.16 % of the total.

Compared to some State-owned enterprises (SOEs) or government institutions who explicitly list "male preferred or male only" in the recruitment criteria, foreign enterprises offer a more lenientemployment environment.

Zhang has worked in human resources management for years. "Frommy experience, foreign enterprises mostly value a candidate's competence and potential, basically paying no attention to the gender.

Liu Xiaohong, Vice President of Motorola, is the director of Asia Pacific Law Department, Greater China Region. She held that female and male don't really make a difference in the work performance, and the company should never limit the position to a specific gender."

A report on China human resources development released by the Development Research Center of the State Council last week showed,among the surveyed enterprises, female employees accounted for only 34 percent in SOEs, and even less in the management level.

However, Lu Feng, a noted professor from Guanghua School of Management under Beijing University, said the statistics with Beijing-based foreign enterprises might be a rare case.

Foreign enterprises have set up lots of office buildings in Beijing, Lu said. Women enjoy more advantage in the office work which requires a strong language background and paper work efficiency.

(China Daily  May 4, 2004)