A visiting Chinese delegation of recruiters and representatives from more than 27 Chinese financial firms stopped in London, Chicago, and New York in an effort to upgrade their existing employee workforce by searching internationally. The current global economic crisis is allowing Chinese banks to more readily tap into potential hires. The International Herald Tribune reports:

…in a reverse miniature brain drain, Chinese financial institutions are taking advantage of the downturn and focusing on the newly unemployed to diversify and upgrade their own staffs.

Representatives from Chinese banks recruit for senior-level talent in New York

In another reversal of fortune, China, because of its closed financial sector — which Washington and the West have been insisting China open — has been largely shielded from the toxic mortgage-backed securities that brought down many of the world’s banks. Capital flows in and out of China are tightly controlled, and China’s capital markets are closed to foreign companies.

But China’s insular financial system has also kept it underdeveloped. Although employees of large Chinese financial institutions usually graduate from top Chinese universities, they lack practical market experience.