China Faces Talent Shortage Amid DeepSeek-Fueled AI Jobs Surge

Companies Offering Attractive Salaries, Expanding Search Overseas to Fill Roles

- Michelle Ng and Joyce ZK Lim

Headhunter Jason Yang has been busy filling artificial intelligence (AI) jobs at top Chinese technology companies, from start-ups like DeepSeek to industry giants such as ByteDance.

Speaking to The Straits Times at a crowded jobs fair in the southern tech hub of Shenzhen this week, the recruiter said that he has had to cast a wide net, as the demand for AI talent in China far outstrips the number of people who qualify for these jobs.

To fill many of these positions, his company recruits top AI talent from overseas, including the US, Europe and Singapore, said the chief executive of Shenzhen-based headhunting company Touch HR.

These candidates are typically ethnic Chinese who have obtained bachelor's and master's degrees from China's top universities and subsequently pursued doctoral studies in the US, Mr Yang said.

Headhunters like Mr Yang are finding it challenging to find suitable candidates as the battle for AI talent heats up in China, with Big Tech firms from Xiaomi to Alibaba shoring up their teams and more companies across different industries hopping on the AI bandwagon.

The shortage of skilled AI workers in China has led to some companies pouring out large sums of money to entice the existing talent - with some poaching from rival companies - and expanding their search to overseas talent, a move which analysts said might not be the most cost-effective owing to higher wage expectations.

This follows the global success of China's newest AI darling DeepSeek, which has, in recent weeks, galvanised nearly the entire Chinese AI ecosystem to support the company and its models.

In January, DeepSeek stunned the global tech world with its open-source reasoning model and stoked panic over Chinese competition in AI, leading to a massive sell-off of US tech stocks.