China's economy continues to enjoy double-digit growth as its rural population moves towards the city.

By 2020, it is estimated that the population spread will have reversed from 60 per cent in the country to 60 per cent living in the 600 major cities and 200,000 townships on the mainland.

As in Victorian England, China's urbanisation stimulates its economy – although with significant costs in terms of poor housing, energy and pollution, family disruption and personal health and wellbeing challenges.

Joe decided that this was not for him.  He had grown up in a rural village in Central China, with a good schooling, a supportive family and a growing local community appeared to offer him a comfortable basis for a future local factory career.

But then he looked at what the factory job involved – the long working hours, the difficult conditions, the spartan living accommodation, and the lack of prospects.

Go to university, get a degree, become a manager. Send some of your earnings back to your family, and come home one day, as a rich and powerful businessman.

So Joe registered for university, maybe not the 'Ivy League' top colleges in Beijing or Shanghai, but at least into the provincially prestigious Chengdu University.

After graduating with a BA in English Studies and an MA in Marketing, the world – or at least the whole of China – was at his feet.

But no one had told him of the statistics, how things had changed since he first went to college back in 2002. One hundred million other people had also moved from the country to the towns.

The Government White Paper of 2000 which had cautioned against the "blind expansion" of the townships had been largely ignored locally, and worst of all in the big cities on the eastern coastline.

Joe has graduated in 2007 into a world with general unemployment at between eight and ten per cent.

Five million graduates enter and therefore come out of the university system every year, while some 23 million students are currently in higher education.

But the recruitment market for new graduates has barely exceeded two million places. There are dramatically fewer opportunities in the cost-tightening multi-nationals, now in their second phase of operating in China.

Joe was fortunate. His work as an interpreter and unpaid intern with a small British consultancy paid off.

With extra coaching in language and marketing skills, Joe got a job with Unilever, in south-west China.

It was not a big job, not a 'graduate traineeship'.

But at least a sales job, where he can show what his skills and motivation can truly contribute.

China is full of young Joes, people who were encouraged to believe that a university qualification would offer opportunities galore, only to find that the capitalist rules of supply and demand are even harsher disciplines than the previous regime of graduate placement by the state, mostly into over-managed local national enterprises.

But the availability of a huge number of Joes – bright, intelligent, keen young professionals – offer huge opportunities for Birmingham-based businesses crying out for talent to work for a while in the UK, and then expanding your business opportunities back in China.

With a little imagination, and the support of good advisers, the emerging available talent from China could be a new resource for hard pressed West Midlands businesses.

* Bill Donnelly is a director of The Links Centre for Business with China