Most foreign workers in Shanghai are Japanese. The number of foreigners working in China exceeds 60,000, the majority of whom are located in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, etc. Our reporter further discovered that currently 16,000 foreigners have obtained work certificates in Beijing, 85% of whom are senior executives or technologists. Almost half of all foreigners working in China are based in Shanghai; there are around 27,000 foreigners and returnees in Shanghai. According to one expert, Shanghai is increasingly tied-in to the global economy. Shanghai currently has around 30,000 Foreign Investment Enterprises and around 10,000 foreign enterprises and organizations. These organizations play an important role in Shanghai’s merging with the global economy. As an official from the Shanghai Labor Bureau said, foreigners working in Shanghai have three special characteristics: high education level – 78% have a bachelor's degree, 11% have a masters degree and 2% have a doctorate; 71.8% are working in Foreign Invested Enterprises, and 17.7% are working in Representative Offices; 54% are from Japan, America and Korea – with one third of this group coming from Japan.

Foreign Workers No Threat To Locals
Although many of the foreigners working in Shanghai are senior executives, are they a threat to local senior executives? According to the general manager of one foreign head-hunter, many foreigners come to their company looking for jobs, but they normally don’t offer them services. When their foreign-invested clients mostly need middle- to high-level executives, almost all of them require Chinese nationals. The staff of foreign companies in China is highly localized. Up to this point, their company has had a single project where the client required Singaporean executives. The logic is simple: Chinese understand the culture and the way of doing things and their salary requirements are lower.

Taken fromhttp://www.why.com.cn/epublish/gb/paper1/1284/class000100013/hwz142007.htm

Thanks to A. Lin for her assistance.