VACANCIES at foreign-funded companies in the last three months of 2006 grew by nearly 70 percent over the same period last year, figures revealed yesterday by the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Labor and Social Security showed.

Foreign-invested companies in the city posted a total of 134,732 vacancies in the fourth quarter of 2006 at the 102 job agencies administrated by the bureau, up 67 percent from the same period in 2005.

They made up nearly 14 percent of the total job offers in the fourth quarter of 2006, compared with 8.4 percent during the same period in the previous year.

At a press conference held at the bureau's office in Futian District yesterday, officials attributed the growing number of vacancies to foreign-funded companies' robust growth in the city.

"While foreign-invested IT and logistics companies continued to see robust growth last year, Shenzhen also attracted multinationals in chemicals, auto parts and modern service sectors to build regional headquarters, research centers, procurement centers and production centers here, which translated to a higher demand for manpower," said Cai Huanxing, a senior official with the bureau.

However, the bureau's figures also showed that a labor shortage - of mainly blue-collared workers - lingered into the fourth quarter, with an average of 1.89 vacancies available for every worker.

The labor shortage is expected to ease after the Spring Festival, when many migrants join the workforce in Shenzhen. However, the bureau still expects a shortage of 200,000 to 300,000 workers in the first quarter of 2007.

Editor: Yan