US-CHINA: American graduates flock east

Shanghai and Beijing are becoming new lands of opportunity for recent American college graduates who face unemployment nearing double digits at home, reports Hannah Seligson for The New York Times. Even those with limited or no knowledge of Chinese are heeding the call. They are lured by China's surging economy, the lower cost of living and a chance to bypass some of the dues-paying that is common to first jobs in the United States.

"I've seen a surge of young people coming to work in China over the last few years," said Jack Perkowski, founder of Asimco Technologies, one of the largest automotive parts companies in China. "When I came over to China in 1994, that was the first wave of Americans coming to China. These young people are part of this big second wave."

Jonathan Woetzel, a partner with McKinsey & Company in Shanghai who has lived in China since the mid-1980s, says that compared with just a few years ago, he was seeing more young Americans arriving in China to be part of an entrepreneurial boom. "There's a lot of experimentation going on in China right now, particularly in the energy sphere, and when people are young they are willing to come and try something new," he said.
Full report on The New York Times site