How can small places attract talent?
The effectiveness of talent competition is often directly and closely related to the city's level and industrial strength. First tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen rely on intensive talent recruitment policies and high-quality work, life, and service environments to continuously attract high-level talents, young innovative talents, and high skilled talents from around the world, achieving a "twice the result with half the effort" effect. However, for small cities with more traditional industrial structures and relatively scarce high-quality resources, attracting and retaining talents is not easy. How to quickly transform abundant labor resources into a "talent dividend" for counties? Overall, it is necessary to tailor measures according to needs, local conditions, times, and circumstances. Let's look at the experience and measures of some small cities in the Yangtze River Delta.
Let's first look at Taicang, Jiangsu. The overall idea is to shape people through production and build a strong matrix of "skilled talents". Taicang City is a benchmark for the localization practice of the dual system of vocational education in China. The so-called dual education model refers to a vocational education system in which school education and enterprise practice complement, influence, and promote each other. In 2001, based on the demand for high skilled talents from German enterprises, Taicang fully utilized the technological accumulation of some German enterprises, introduced the German vocational education model, promoted the establishment of a school enterprise cooperation model, and took the lead in establishing the first professional worker training center in China to synchronize with German vocational education. For over 20 years, Taicang has established more than 20 dual system training centers and projects based on its advantageous industries such as high-end equipment manufacturing and automotive core components. It has gradually built a multi-level technical talent training system covering "vocational schools, colleges, and universities". Currently, it has trained more than 10000 senior management and professional technical talents. The path of Taihe County in Anhui Province is to build a reservoir of "reserve talents". Taihe County is located in the northwest of Anhui Province and is a nationally renowned pharmaceutical distribution center. This seemingly inconspicuous small town in northern Anhui has attracted more than 5000 pharmaceutical companies nationwide, creating a large army of over 100000 pharmaceutical merchants across the country, and forming a huge pharmaceutical sales network of "buying from the whole country and selling from the whole country". Behind the remarkable achievements of Taihe County's modern pharmaceutical industry is its long-standing emphasis on saving reserve industry talents, especially young pharmaceutical talents. In recent years, at the end of the college entrance examination season, Taihe County has issued a letter to the vast number of college entrance examination candidates, proposing to provide tuition subsidies for pharmaceutical related majors who meet the conditions during their school years. For example, for pharmaceutical related college students returning to their hometowns for employment, Taihe County will provide a one-time funding subsidy and give priority to preferential policies such as renting public rental housing. Since the implementation of the policy of subsidizing college students in pharmaceutical related majors in 2019, Taihe County has cumulatively supported over 340 college students in related majors. The strategy of attracting local talents to "return" in Taihe County is a long-term investment that requires funds and patience, and is a talent policy that couples academic, career, and local conditions. Currently, some undergraduate students have returned to local pharmaceutical companies. Looking at Deqing County in Zhejiang Province again, the local method is to attract talents through enclaves, not seeking everything, but seeking what is needed. Deqing County is located in the western part of the Hangzhou Jiahu Plain in the Yangtze River Delta, close to Shanghai and adjacent to Hangzhou. It has consistently ranked first among the "Top 100 Counties in National Science and Technology Innovation", and its flexible talent attraction model is indispensable. In 2019, Deqing successively established "talent enclaves" in Hangzhou and Shanghai, vigorously attracting high-tech projects and talents from developed cities, forming a closed-loop ecosystem of "Shanghai/Hangzhou R&D office+Deqing transformation and production". Afterwards, Deqing focused on local high-end equipment manufacturing, electronic information and other core industries, expanded its flexible talent attraction scope, and jointly created an enclave incubator - Economic Development Think Tank - in Shenzhen, where innovative elements and industrial resources are abundant. Deqing is