(Yicai) Feb. 22 -- China’s new energy vehicle industry faces a shortage of top-flight talent, a shortfall that could exceed one million by next year, GAC Group Chairman Zeng Qinghong said at the Guangdong Provincial High-quality Development Conference held on Feb. 18.

Though NEV makers push cost-cutting and efficiency, they urgently need high-level talent in the intelligent vehicle field, a source at Guangzhou-based automaker’s research and development center told Yicai.

The NEV sector’s growth in China has outpaced the supply of skilled talent in a number of key areas, including engineering and software. The industry’s talent pool may stand at 1.2 million by 2025, with just over a further one million needed, according to an earlier report by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

GAC has over 5,500 R&D personnel, and the GAC R&D Center is openly recruiting for experts in the areas of smart connected cloud platforms, autonomous driving, the Internet of Vehicles, and software architecture. It offers salaries ranging from CNY20,000 to CNY50,000 (USD2,800 to USD6,950) a month, and requires job candidates to have at least five years of work experience.

China’s NEV startups also need more workers. Xpeng Motors plans to hire about 4,000 people this year, with its R&D budget jumping more than 40 percent from a year ago, the Guangzhou-based firms said recently in an internal company letter.

NEV startups are offering high salaries to compete for talent, according to a report by the China Center for Information Industry Development and online recruitment platform Zhaopin. They favor software and algorithm experts, with job listings rising 18 percent from January to July last year.

The monthly salary for vehicle system R&D personnel and algorithm engineers has reached CNY30,000. Compensation also depends on a worker’s education level, with the average pay for graduates holding a doctorate exceeding CNY30,000 a month.

NEV manufacturers have started to pay more attention to the higher education field. BYD hired 31,800 people via its school recruitment program last year, of whom around 61 percent had a master's or doctor’s degree and 81 percent joined its R&D staff.

Editor: Martin Kadiev