New | China’s jobseekers think local as Beijing's policy switch takes shine off foreign firms

To be, or not to be? That was the question facing Chinese railway signalling engineer William Shen for three years: should he stay where he was, working for a well-known German manufacturing conglomerate, or move on and join a private Chinese firm formed only six years ago?

Last month, he made his choice – and resigned from the foreign company where he had been working since 2005. Today, he is a senior manager at a Beijing-based domestic manufacturing firm.

“I think there are many people like me who have worked for multinational companies before joining a domestic firm,” Shen said. “We start to reflect on our career paths after we’ve been trained and worked at foreign businesses for a few years.”

Shen, 37, said he was uncertain if his decision would prove worthwhile and that his biggest concern was whether he could adapt to his new work environment.

“But I’ve talked to lots of people and the consensus is the future of multinationals is not as promising as it was, and domestic companies, although some are still in their infancy, are growing rapidly in China. It is an inevitable trend,” he said.

This new view contrasts with jobseekers’ preference for foreign companies over the past three decades.