Chinese job candidates in Jiangsu province. From 2012 to 2014, the compound annual growth rate of China's HR industry was 15 percent, according to a report by HRoot. Provided to China Daily

HR agencies see increase in demand from private Chinese firms and Stated-owned enterprises

China's economic slowdown may have caused concern among some multinational companies, resulting in staff cutbacks, but for those in the recruitment industry, an increase in local clients is proving to be a welcome surprise.

Headhunters and human resource specialists say they have witnessed soaring demand for their services from Chinese companies as more attempt to go global.

George Huang, partner-in-charge of the Beijing office of Heidrick & Struggles, an executive recruitment consultancy, says three years ago, about 90 percent of the company's business came from multinational companies. Today, it is only about 60 percent, with the rest coming from local companies, mostly private enterprises.

"This is a big change," he says. "One that has led to a transformation in our team over the past 14 months, as it means we need to change and innovate, to think about how to better serve local companies who have different cultures and requirements in price and other aspects."

The China Human Resource Service Industry Research Report 2015 by researchers HRoot says that, from 2012 to 2014, the compound annual growth rate of the country's HR industry was 15 percent. Last year, the overall scale of the industry reached 140.39 billion yuan ($22.9 billion; 20.6 billion euros), and it is forecast to reach about 315.7 billion yuan in 2019.

From 2012 to 2014, the compound annual growth rate of online recruitment was about 36 percent, with the market worth about 8.73 billion yuan last year.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security last year issued a document on accelerating the development of the HR services industry, stating that, by 2020, the HR industry should be worth 2 trillion yuan and employ more than 500,000 people. The ministry has also encouraged Chinese companies to use headhunters to find high-level executives.

Huang says that in the past few years, the recruitment demand of multinational companies in China has remained stable, albeit with some decrease, while the demand from local companies, mostly privately owned, has soared. It is a trend he expects to continue.

Ruben van den Boer, a senior analyst for RMG Selection, a British recruitment company focused on finding mid-level and senior-level talent, has had a similar experience: "If you called them (local companies) two or three years ago, they would say, 'No, we don't use recruiters.' If you call them now, they will listen, so the energy is changing. They are more open and willing to try."

He estimates that the proportion of clients in his field, the logistic industry, that are multinational corporations has fallen from 90 to 70 percent in the past three or four years.

According to Duan Lixin, vice-president of Career International, which has more than 1,000 consultants across 40 offices in Asia, recruitment services started being offered in China only about 15 years ago and were mostly restricted to multinationals. Today, private companies, stated-owned enterprises and governments are all using the services.