This month, Taizhou, Wenzhou, and Zhoushan launched new talent policies. Since July last year, 11 cities in Zhejiang have issued policies to upgrade and supplement the existing talent policies.

"Why has each regional city issued "new talent policies"? On the one hand, due to the impact of the epidemic, strengthening the supply of employment policies is one of the key points to stabilize employment. On the other hand, after the integrated regional development of the Yangtze River Delta becomes a national strategy, Zhejiang is ushering in new development opportunities. There is a sense of urgency all over Zhejiang on how to achieve new goals of high-quality development and be at an advantage in the fiercest war for talents based on the actual situation.

The attraction of a city to talents is closely related to its degree of tolerance and openness. Loosen the restrictions of the educational threshold features prominently in this round of new talent policies: people who have secondary vocational and junior college degrees can be directly settled. At the same time, the age of the imported talents, the time limit of social security payment and other conditions are gradually relaxed or canceled.

The new household registration policy of 11 cities in Zhejiang shows the new orientation of talent value, and skilled talents can be directly settled. In Wenzhou, Huzhou, Lishui, and other places, those who have obtained the junior professional title and the junior skill level certificate can also settle down directly. 

In Zhejiang, there is far more than one incentive for skilled people to settle down. Hangzhou Federation of Trade Unions has formulated and implemented the city's highly skilled personnel incentive policy since 2015. With the upgrading of vocational level identification, every skilled talent can receive a cash reward from the Federation. It is reported that in 2018 alone, 10,555 employees in Hangzhou received high-skilled talent awards, totaling 5,656,100 yuan.

The evaluation criteria of "high-level talents" are also being broken. In July this year, Li Qingheng, a courier from the post-1995 generation, was selected as a top talent in Hangzhou, being awarded a million-yuan housing subsidy. Urban development requires not only highly educated research-oriented talents but also skilled talents with professional skills. Only by removing prejudice against occupation and identity can we create a diverse and multi-level talent environment, which marks that in Zhejiang, the "talent view" based on ability rather than the level of the educational background has become the mainstream.

The policy of "zero threshold to settle down” provides convenience for talents to come to Zhejiang. But for young talents, stiff indexes such as employment opportunities and housing security are the key to stay in Zhejiang.

In 2017, the Implementation Measures for Providing Living Subsidies for Newly Introduced Graduates with Advanced Degrees in Hangzhou was issued, providing living subsidies for master students and doctoral students who find jobs or start businesses in Hangzhou within one year after graduation. Now, global graduates with a bachelor's degree or above who come to work in Hangzhou can get a one-off living allowance, including 10,000 yuan for bachelor's degree, 30,000 yuan for master's degree, 50,000 yuan for doctor's degree and 400,000 yuan for a newly arrived post-doctoral degree. Following the example of Hangzhou, cities across Zhejiang province are also offering living subsidies to fresh college students. Moreover, Shaoxing and Taizhou added junior college students to the list of offering subsidies.

In addition to the living allowance, each city has been exploring new ways to guarantee to the house for talents. Last December, Wenzhou issued a new talent housing policy, which allows qualified undergraduate students to buy houses at a 30% discount. In the Quzhou 2020 New Policy for Talents released in June this year, besides providing housing subsidies for talents with bachelor's degrees or above, Quzhou also provides housing subsidies for junior college students.

How to better serve talent? Accelerating policy implementation is a necessary step. As the birthplace of the reform of "run once at most", Zhejiang has constantly optimized the handling process via the Internet and big data.

During the epidemic, Ningbo gave full play to the "cloud service" and launched the "talent manager", helping the entrepreneurial teams who could not inspect the sites and connect with investment to handle the business via the "live-streaming".

In April this year, Nanhu District of Jiaxing took the lead in the province to build a service cloud platform for talents, which can handle 110 talent services.

As the first city of digital management, Hangzhou innovatively launched the "talent code" in May this year, which gives access for talents to the policies about the child educates, buying houses, and more than 100 talent policies. In July, Hangzhou launched "Talent code 2.0" to extend its service to fresh college students. By August 25, 15,321 high-level talents and 27,653 fresh graduates had applied for the "talent code", and 5,782 persons had applied for subsidies, with a total amount of 161.4 million yuan.

Since the beginning of this year, more than 100 cities across the country have issued talent policies, and measures such as easing household registration, employment subsidies, and incentives for starting businesses have become universal in all regions. However, after the demographic dividend gradually fades away, tapping talent dividend and releasing talent potential become the key point to stimulate urban development.

In 2019, Hangzhou issued a "recruitment order" for global talents. By 2022, the city will select 10 top talents, and cultivate 100 leading talents in the fields of the digital economy, life and health, and finance. Taizhou issued a global talent attracting plan with a total investment of 61.2 million yuan on industries such as auto parts and medicine, inviting outstanding talents (teams) from all over the world.

Lots of new measures have been taken frequently. So what results have these policies achieved? In April this year, Hangzhou ranked fifth in the "2019 China's Cities for Talent Attractiveness" report. And it was second only to the four first-tier cities of Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing and Guangzhou, ranking first in the "new first-tier" cities. Zhejiang has eight places in the top 100, including Hangzhou, Ningbo, Jiaxing, Wenzhou, Jinhua, Huzhou, Shaoxing, and Taizhou.

(Compiled by Xu Yuhong, translated by Yu Fei)