“Macau is like no where else” said Queenie Zhu, the Managing director of MyJobs Macau, “it’s an island between Hong Kong and China, literally and figuratively, and it really has its own game.” She explains that Macau is a place where the terms ‘budget limitations’, ‘scarcity’ or ‘unemployment’ just don’t play a role, and unlike many other places, competition is not something employees are worried about, but rather a more common problem for employers. “If you want to get into Macau, you have to know how things work. If you want to leave Macau, you’d better know what’s happening outside, because it is a completely different story out there.”
According to Zhu, Macau residents have amazing opportunities nowadays to get easy access to education, countless job opportunities, and never-ending government support. “The young generation in Macau is experiencing something that not many people see nowadays, it is like heaven for every fresh graduate. Life is easy.”
But it might be too easy, she admits, having unlimited employment opportunities at leading businesses in the city means that a wide range of locals are just not appreciating the incredible chance. “We can call it ‘hunger’. People are just not hungry in Macau, and it shows. Today, as an HR agent, it is hard to find workers who will compromise on their salary or working conditions.”
She explains “for example, working in a 24 hours industry requires shift work. However, as the industry has a very high turnover, people just don’t feel the urge on taking a shift-based positions, or change their attitude towards their working place, because there will always be someone else that will hire them.”
While in the neighboring cities to Macau there is a competitive atmosphere among businesses’ service quality, it seems that Macau still enjoys the annual high income that comes from gamblers to the extent that providing any special service just isn’t worth the effort.
Zhu elaborates “Whether you work hard or not, you can still make a good living, even as a simple clerk, and therefore neither businesses nor employees see the need for training for good service. This situation may result in relaying on foreign labor to fill in the gaps of expertise and work attitude from the mainland, Philippines and the west. But this situation will not last long, as Macau is opening to the west gradually, and standards are changing.”
“With the entrance of the west, higher pressure on performance at work will follow,” Zhu claims, “and with that will come the need of the locals to step it up to the global standard, and stand in the expectations of the employers. The game will change, and soon there will be no more compromising over expertise.”
Zhu explains that part of her job as employment consultants is to prepare candidates to their job interview, their role and even for the company’s ideology. “Many times I see people who just don’t know how to prepare for an interview, and how to ‘sell’ themselves. Therefore we have developed five different kinds of courses to the public that will serve job seekers for all aspects on their way of getting a job and while doing business.”
The courses offered by MyJobs Macau seem like the natural component in a service oriented society. “We are covering everything in our preparation of the candidates to the real world, from writing an impressive resume, preparing to interview, and all the way to conversational and business English, western business culture, and office survival skills, that will bring an obvious advantage to each employee over others.”
It is well known that over the last year Macau has closed its doors to outside work force, and the government has been protecting its local workers extendedly. As the world’s panic over the financial situation eases, and the local industry moves on, it seems like the situation will change its course. “Things will change sooner or later as the local workers just lack some years of experience, and at this point we still need foreign knowledge and expertise. For this reason alone, Macau people should step it up and get into the game like the rest of the world.”
According to Zhu, Macau has changed tremendously in the past few years, and we still haven’t seen the best of it. “The change was big, it was just overwhelming. From now on all there is to do is developing the local talent, and implementing a long lasting economy instead of the one-hit wonder that the city turned to be. It is up to this generation to decide the future of the city, and I believe that with the right tools, they can make it”
Looking for a job? http://deltabridges.com/macau-jobs
