Jane Chen / Shanghai Daily news

Shenzhen-based ZTE Corp, China's biggest publically traded telecommunications equipment supplier, denied a recent media report that, in a bid to cut costs, it intends to cut a total of 3,000 Chinese workers from its overseas branches, Sina.com.cn reported.
"This rumor is totally groundless," said ZTE human resource official Xu Ming.
Testifying to the company's strong development strategy, he said ZTE will recruit 2,200 university graduates nationally this year, the largest in-take in years.  These graduates, mostly postgraduate students, will start their service by the end of July.
While strengthening the profile of personnel based in China, ZTE is adopting a new human resource policy of localizing the staff within its overseas branches, which entails cuts in the number of Chinese workers there, Xu acknowledged. But only 200 staff, evaluated as being unsuitable for overseas posts, should be affected this year, as opposed to the 3,000 quoted, he noted, referring to an internal ZTE survey.
"These workers initially will be transferred to other posts within domestic branches and only then may be layed-off if they are still unable to meet the requirements of their new positions," he said.
ZTE has a payroll of over 20,000 people and lays-off the worst-performing 5 percent each year. "For a large and well-developed company like ZTE, this level of staff turnover is normal," Xu said.