Hewlett-Packard (HP), U.S. technology giant, plans to recruit more than 1,000 workers on the Chinese mainland by the end of this year, reported Saturday's China Daily.

The aggressive move, experts says, underlines that China is becoming a source of talent for multinationals, instead of merely a manufacturing centre and a market.

HP's current 5,000 staff members are expected to grow 20 percent with the recruitment that will start this month to fill various posts, such as sales managers, technical consultants and software engineers, Cheng-Yaw Sun, president of HP China, was quoted as saying.

About one fourth of the 1,078 vacant posts are for research and development (R&D) staff members.

And engineers, who will work for a global BPO (business process offshore) center in Dalian, Liaoning Province, will account for 28 percent of the new jobs.

Sun said the recruitment is the largest ever of its kind in the history of HP China since it entered the country in 1985 as the first Sino-US high-tech joint venture, whose mainland business jumped by 25 percent in 2005.

"We expect to maintain rapid growth this year, which will require substantial support from more local talent," he said.

"China has become the most important strategic market and talent pool for HP globally."

While recruiting more people to the China division, HP last year announced a plan to axe 14,500 jobs globally as part of a restructuring programme designed to save 1.9 billion U.S. dollars annually and improve performance.

Source: China Daily