UpdateChina’s ‘revolving door’: finance officials jump ship for top jobs in the private sector
Top staff at industry watchdogs look to greener pastures as frugality drive and declining promotion prospects take toll
Like the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street, financial professionals in China are ditching their iron rice bowls for better-paying jobs in the private sector.
Yao Yudong, head of a central bank research institute and one of the authority’s best-known faces, is the latest to head for the exit.
He resigned and would move to Shenzhen-based Dacheng Fund in the next two months to head up research at the fund firm, Caixin reported.
Before him, there was Wu Ge, a division chief at a central bank unit in charge of exchange rate policy. He left his state job to become the chief economist at a Chinese brokerage. And at least three officials at the central bank’s payment department quit this year for other jobs, according to local media reports.
A few blocks from the central bank in Beijing’s Financial Street, talent has streamed out the door of the China Securities Regulatory Commission since the stock market rout last year and an anti-corruption campaign within the regulatory agency.
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The personnel changes come as China’s financial industry, especially its asset management segment, is expanding to become one of the best-paying businesses in the world’s second-biggest economy. At the same time, the frugality campaign launched under President Xi Jinping is making life tougher for public sector employees.