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Company Finds its Workers Dates
Summary:Zhongneng isn't the first place to try hooking up its workers. Earlier this year a police bureau in Chengdu, Sichuan Province launched a "Plan to Rescue Single Cops" by posting information on their Weibo account about its single male officers.


By Song Fuli (宋馥李)
Nation, page 12
Issue No. 573, June 11, 2012
Translated by Zhu Na
Original article:
[Chinese]

Xuzhou - When desperate for a girlfriend, few guys probably look to their boss for help. But one company in Jiangsu Province has made hooking up its men one of HR's top priorities.

Jiangsu Zhongneng Silicon Industry Science and Technology Development Ltd. (江苏中能硅业科技发展有限公司) puts an emphasis on chemical, mechanical and engineering backgrounds when looking for new hires. Because of this, female employees are rare and the overwhelming surplus of males is having real effects on the company’s bottom line.  In response, Zhongneng’s management has had to add "matchmaker" to its list of responsibilities.

"Female employees are a scarce resource," assistant General Manager Wang Genrong (王根荣) told the EO.

"If we don’t solve the love and marriage problem for our staff, after a while they'll want to go back home or back to where they went to university. This is really a problem."

The company was founded in 2006 in the Xuzhou (徐州) economic technology development zone and hires workers from all over the country.

In 2008, the company's HR department started realizing the gender imbalance problem. In spite of high salaries and ever-improving working conditions, many workers declined to renew their contracts so they could return home to find a wife.

As most of the company's employees join the firm straight out of college and often come from faraway, they move in very limited social circles and have a hard time connecting with local girls.

In light of this situation, deputy HR Manager Zhang Shijia (张诗笳) was tasked with helping the male workers find girlfriends.

Last April, she helped organize a dating party between the company's men and customer service women from Xuzhou City China Mobile and China Telecom. In the end, 60 men and 40 women showed up with dozens of couples actually getting matched.

Then the following February, the company invited single nurses from several of Xuzhou's hospitals for a Valentine's Day party that featured eight-minute speed dates. Twelve new couples emerged from that event.

Zhongneng isn't the first place to try hooking up its workers. Earlier this year a police bureau in Chengdu, Sichuan Province launched a "Plan to Rescue Single Cops" by posting information on their Weibo account about its single male officers.

With many young Chinese working further away from home and facing marriage pressure in their late-20s, more companies are feeling a need to help their employees as they struggle to juggle work and dating.

Zhongneng now budgets a few hundred thousand yuan each year for matchmaking activities. It also encourages staff from out of town to look locally for their spouse by offering a 1,000 yuan wedding gift to anyone marrying a local Xuzhou girl.

This article was edited by Eric Fish

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