Young Chinese jobseekers turn to luxury cruises
To get a job as a member of kitchen staff aboard a luxury cruise liner, 23-year-old Daniel paid a hiring agent more than US$6,000
An increasing number of young Chinese are aspiring to become crew members on luxury cruises, even as some of them have to pay as much as six months’ salary to hiring agencies.
High salaries and opportunities to travel the world have propelled a surge in job applicants, while international cruise operators have aggressively expanded in China, the world’s second largest cruise market, over the past five years.
Stella Zhang, a sales manager at Royal Caribbean, recalls that seven years ago the number of Chinese staff on an international cruise “can be counted on the fingers of one hand”.
Nowadays, 16 cruise lines have home ports in China. A medium-sized cruise line with a home port in China employs about half its crew members from the mainland. A cruise liner generally has about 1,500 to 2,000 crew members.
“My main motivation is to make big money, and I also want to see the world,” said Daniel, a 23-year-old who recently passed job interviews to become a member of kitchen staff, declining to give his surname.
To get the job he paid an intermediary hiring agent 40,000 yuan (US$6,020). As part of the preparation service, he was given coaching in basic English and received help in signing up for interviews.