Millennials flocking to China as focus changes to tech skills

As China’s economy continues to grow and the vast country itself continues to attract expats, a totally new generation of foreigners is heading east.

The millennials now flocking to China represent a completely new take on expatriation as they have an in-depth understanding of the country's business ethics and culture as well as being close to fluent in the challenging Chinese language. Many originally arrived after graduating from a Western university to study at its Chinese equivalent, and have stayed on to work or start new businesses. A good number of new arrivals have Chinese family backgrounds, with others having been fascinated by the country itself and its millennia of history.

Compared with older foreigners who’ve been resident for some years, the new millennials don’t confine themselves to expat haunts and events, but integrate with the local Chinese community. They've made sure they understand business ethics and the work culture rather than dwelling on the differences between China and their countries of birth and have no problems with venturing outside their individual comfort zones. Importantly, they respect the massive modernisation strides which have characterised China over the past several decades and are still continuing.

One 26-year old American expatriate works at Great Leap Brewing company as its communications manager, the perfect job for a guy who first came to China during his first year at an American university to study an intensive Chinese language course at a Beijing university. After double-majoring in Chinese history and the Chinese language in the States, he returned to China to begin his career. He’s happy to see younger foreigners with Chinese backgrounds arriving to become entrepreneurs, start their own businesses or work for start-ups, saying older expats would never have imagined China as a land of opportunity for foreigners.

According to an older expat who arrived in China 11 years ago after a stint in Hong Kong, networking events at that time were crammed with younger foreigners aiming to get jobs. Many were learning Chinese, but the traditional ‘old China hands’ structure of the expat community was such that younger people struggled to get a foothold. The majority simply gave up as their skills weren’t suitable for the then labour market. Nowadays, with the focus on robotics, e-commerce and artificial intelligence, the door is wide open for talented expat millennials.