(Yicai Global) March 28 -- Some 39.9 percent of Shanghai’s residents had a college degree or higher educational qualification last year, compared with 27.8 percent in 2010, according to data from the city’s statistics bureau.

As China's largest city, Shanghai has many multinational firms and financial institutions, a prominent headquarters economy, with expanding research and development and innovation sectors, and attracts much of the country's top talent. Several large companies from other provincial-level regions such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Anhui also have recently moved their HQs to Shanghai.

The ranks of Shanghai’s college graduates or above rose by around 3.4 million between 2010 and 2020, according to the results of the seventh national population census. The city’s graduate numbers jumped by about 11,980 per 100,000 residents in the same period, the most of any Chinese city.

The Yangtze River Delta region has China's largest and most economically developed city group, which Shanghai leads. In this role, the city has a strong pull on talent from across the region, as well as from east and central China and the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

Shanghai has created the most new job positions in China for three straight years, according to recruitment platform operator Liepin.Com. The city has a large talent gap because of the rapid development of core industries during its 14th Five-Year Plan, including in the semiconductor, biopharmaceutical, artificial intelligence, and new energy vehicle sectors. Shanghai also reported the country’s fastest-growing salaries.

Shanghai's population was nearly 25 million last year, with 14.7 million permanent residents with household registration and about 10 million migrants, according to its statistics bureau. Some 23 percent of migrants came from Anhui province, 16.1 percent from Jiangsu, and 11.6 percent from Henan.

Editor: Martin Kadiev