Job Sites in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Korea

Most hiring in Northeast Asia runs through national boards written in the local language, and the sites built for foreign applicants carry a small fraction of their listings. BOSS Zhipin in China averaged 70.2 million monthly active users in the second quarter of 2026, while Saramin and JobKorea, South Korea’s two largest boards, are Korean-only on their main sites. Taiwan’s 104 Job Bank is the exception that partly bridges the gap: it reports that about four in ten employers on the site mark themselves as open to foreign applicants.

This directory covers 13 platforms across mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. It includes national leaders, government job services and the main boards aimed at foreign and bilingual applicants, and it excludes recruitment agencies that charge candidates. Each site was opened on 7 November 2026; listing counts are what each site displayed that day or what its operator has published, and they are labeled as such. Sites that did not state whether job seekers pay are marked as not stating it.

Across all five markets, the platform matters less than the permit. Every one of them ties ordinary professional work to an employer-sponsored permit with a salary or points threshold, so a listing is only useful if the employer is willing and eligible to sponsor. On 104 Job Bank, foreign applicants in 2024 received interview invitations at half the rate of applicants overall, which the company attributed to employer worries about language and to permit rules, in 104’s own analysis. The sections below give each market’s permit basics first, then its platforms. Teachers have a separate set of routes, covered in our guide to teaching jobs abroad.

Mainland China: national apps built around direct chat

Foreigners working in mainland China need a Foreigner’s Work Permit, applied for by a registered Chinese employer, and applicants are graded A, B or C. Scores of 85 points or more mean Category A and 60 to 84 mean Category B, the route most professionals use, according to China Briefing; Category C is quota-controlled, and points come from salary, education, experience, age and Chinese ability, among other factors. Competition among local graduates is stiff: the urban unemployment rate for 16 to 24-year-olds, excluding students, was 18% in September 2026, down from 18.9% in August, per National Bureau of Statistics figures. The scale of that competition shows in the 6,470 applicants for one job we reported on earlier, for a single civil service post.

BOSS Zhipin

BOSS Zhipin is one of China’s largest recruitment apps, run by Kanzhun, which is listed in New York and Hong Kong. Its model is direct chat: job seekers message hiring managers or recruiters inside the app rather than sending a CV into a queue. Kanzhun reported 70.2 million average monthly active users in the second quarter of 2026, up 10.4% from a year earlier, and 7.2 million paying enterprise customers in the 12 months to June, in its quarterly filing. The site and app are in Simplified Chinese. Basic job search is free; the company earns a small amount from optional paid features for job seekers, which it cut back in 2025.

Strength: the widest reach in China, from factory and retail work to tech and finance.
Strength: fast contact with the person hiring.
Weakness: Chinese only, with no foreigner filter on the page checked.
Weakness: the homepage carried no scam guidance on the day checked.

Liepin

Liepin is aimed at mid-career and senior candidates and is built around headhunters as well as employers. Employers on the page checked included multinationals such as AstraZeneca and Siemens, and some job titles were in English, though the interface is Chinese. Its operator, Tongdao Liepin Group, reported 122.1 million registered individual users and 1.51 million verified business users as of 30 June 2026, and its verified headhunters made 740.3 million contacts with candidates in the first half of the year, up 10.6%, in its interim results. Searching is free; paid career services exist, and 46,782 individuals paid for them in the first half of 2026.

Strength: better coverage of senior, multinational and returnee roles than mass-market apps.
Strength: headhunters can approach candidates who keep a profile.
Weakness: Chinese interface; paid services are promoted alongside free search.

Hong Kong: English-language boards and a government job service

English is an official language in Hong Kong, and its permit routes for professionals are large. In 2025 the government approved 31,278 applications under the General Employment Policy, the main employer-sponsored route for non-Mainland professionals, and 31,508 under the Top Talent Pass Scheme, which needs no job offer, according to government statistics released in March 2026. South Korea was the largest source of approvals under the employer-sponsored route, with 5,516, ahead of Japan with 3,689; Mainland residents, who made up 94% of Top Talent approvals, use separate schemes. The job market is softer than Japan’s: seasonally adjusted unemployment was 3.8% in June to August 2026, up from 3.7%, against 2.4% in Japan in September, as reported by Human Resources Online.

Jobsdb

Jobsdb describes itself as Hong Kong’s leading job board and is operated by the Australian listed company SEEK, in English and Chinese. Job seekers do not pay to search or apply. Since August 2025 employers have been able to post unlimited ads for free and pay only to boost them, and SEEK said at the time it had more than 2.9 million registered job seekers in the city, in a company announcement. Competition rose sharply in 2025: average applications per ad were up 58% on 2024 while total ad volume fell, according to Jobsdb’s annual data.

Strength: the broadest coverage of office, finance and professional roles.
Strength: SEEK scans every ad; across Asia-Pacific it removed about 2,800 high-risk ads in the year to June 2025.
Weakness: entry-level administrative ads are the category scammers target most.

CTgoodjobs

CTgoodjobs is Hong Kong’s other large general board, covering full-time and part-time work, with an English and a Chinese interface. On the day checked it listed 4,995 openings under banking and finance, 3,370 under sales and business development and 2,517 under information technology; the site gives no overall total, and the categories may overlap. It also carries civil service and NGO listings. Registration is free, and the site does not state any fees for job seekers.

Strength: strong finance and IT coverage, with function-level counts shown.
Strength: a useful second search alongside Jobsdb, since some employers post on only one.
Weakness: no published total and no operator named on the homepage.

Interactive Employment Service (Labour Department)

The Labour Department’s Interactive Employment Service is the government’s free job site, with a mobile app, job alerts and listings of the department’s job fairs. Employers post to it without charge, and it leans toward catering, retail, property management and other frontline work rather than corporate roles. The department also runs large in-person fairs and programs for young job seekers and for Greater Bay Area placements. The site blocked automated access on 7 November 2026, so its current vacancy count was not checked; the department’s service leaflet describes its features.

Strength: free, government-run and vetted.
Weakness: few professional roles for newly arrived talent-visa holders.
Weakness: current listing volume could not be verified for this directory.

Taiwan: one dominant board with a foreigner section

To hire a foreign professional for most white-collar work, a Taiwanese employer must pay at least NT$47,971 a month, a floor confirmed by the Ministry of Labor, and must also meet capital or revenue thresholds of NT$5 million or NT$10 million. Amendments to the foreign professionals law that took effect on 1 January 2026 widened the Employment Gold Card, which needs no employer sponsor, and let foreign graduates of Taiwanese universities work without a separate permit while their residence is extended. The government’s TaiwanJobs portal is in Chinese and has no section for foreign professionals, so most foreign applicants rely on private boards.

104 Job Bank

104 Job Bank is Taiwan’s leading job board, with a separate 104 Foreigners section that offers language switching, permit information and CV help. More than 40,000 foreign nationals looked for work through it in 2025, up 28% on 2024, with Malaysians, Indonesians and Vietnamese the largest groups, as reported by the Taipei Times. About 40% of employers on the site mark themselves as welcoming foreign applicants; restaurant and hospitality roles drew the most employer interview invitations, followed by sales and finance. The main site is in Traditional Chinese.

Strength: the largest pool of Taiwanese employers, with a foreigner-friendly filter.
Strength: publishes regular data on foreign job seekers.
Weakness: interview invitation rates for foreigners lag well behind locals.
Weakness: the 104 Foreigners page did not load for automated checks on 7 November 2026.

Cake

Cake, formerly CakeResume, combines job listings with CV and portfolio building, and its interface runs in English, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Japanese. Listings on the page checked leaned toward Taiwan, Vietnam and Indonesia, especially tech and startup roles. Cake claims more than 10 million users and more than 10,000 hiring companies; it publishes no job count. Search, CV building and portfolios are free, with 60 free AI credits a month and a paid Premium tier whose price was not shown on the homepage.

Strength: English-first, so usable without Chinese.
Strength: portfolio tools suit design and engineering applicants.
Weakness: user and employer totals are the company’s own, unaudited claims.

Japan: a public employment network and boards for bilingual hires

Japan had a record 2,571,037 foreign workers at the end of October 2025, up 11.7% in a year and 4.1% of everyone employed, according to the labor ministry’s annual count reported by VOV. Of those, 865,588 held professional or technical residence statuses, the group most of the boards below serve. The market remains tight: there were 1.19 openings per applicant at public employment offices in September 2026, with unemployment at 2.4%, per official data. Employers apply for or support a residence status that matches the job, which is why listings for foreigners state whether overseas applicants can apply.

Hello Work

Hello Work is Japan’s public employment service, run by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, and its online job search covers vacancies lodged at offices nationwide. The website is in Japanese only. For foreign residents, the ministry runs Employment Service Centers for Foreigners in cities including Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka; the Nagoya center offers English, Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish. Users must already be in Japan with a residence card showing they may work, and the Fukuoka center notes that listings are in Japanese and basic conversation is needed. All services are free.

Strength: free, with counseling, CV checks and interview practice at the foreigner centers.
Weakness: few roles for applicants without Japanese.
Weakness: the site warns of fake emails impersonating Hello Work.

GaijinPot Jobs

GaijinPot Jobs is an English-language job board for foreigners in Japan, run by GPlusMedia, part of the Gakken Group. Each listing states the English and Japanese level required and whether overseas applications are accepted, which matters for anyone who needs an employer to support a visa. Teaching, hospitality, tourism and entry-level corporate roles dominate; listings on the day checked included a restaurant group, a real estate company and international schools. The site did not show a total job count or any job seeker fees on the pages loaded on 7 November 2026.

Strength: clear language and overseas-application labels on each ad.
Strength: no Japanese needed to use the site.
Weakness: far fewer listings than general Japanese boards.
Weakness: thin on senior professional roles.

Daijob

Daijob, run by Human Resocia, targets bilingual and multilingual professionals, with filters for visa support, overseas applications and the languages a job uses. Its search page showed 8,572 jobs on the day checked, while the same site claims more than 10,000 listings. Recruitment firms post alongside direct employers, including Daijob’s own agency arm, and the site does not say what share comes from each. Employers can contact candidates who make their CV public. The site does not state any fees for job seekers.

Strength: more mid-career and corporate roles than GaijinPot.
Strength: filters by visa support and working language.
Weakness: many listings come through agencies, so the employer may not be named.

South Korea: Korean-only giants and foreigner add-ons

South Korea had a record 1,109,000 employed foreign residents in May 2025, up 9.8% in a year, according to the national statistics office survey reported by the Kyunghyang Shinmun. The largest group, 321,000, held non-professional employment visas, which are allocated through the government’s Employment Permit System rather than open job boards. Professionals usually need an employer to sponsor an E-7 visa, and the main private boards remain in Korean. Koreabridge has covered how the foreign population is changing in more detail.

Work24

Work24 is the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s portal, run with the Korea Employment Information Service. It merged the older WorkNet job listings with employment insurance, training and other services, and it links to the Employment Permit System site for foreign workers. The homepage showed 142,026 job postings on the day checked. It is in Korean only, with no language selector, and it is free.

Strength: free, government-run and large.
Strength: employers hiring through the Employment Permit System work through it.
Weakness: Korean only, and most postings assume Korean ability.

Saramin and KoMate

Saramin is one of Korea’s two largest private boards, and its main site is entirely in Korean. Its foreigner platform, KoMate, launched in November 2024 with support for 30 languages, according to the comparison site Seoulstart. On the day checked, KoMate listings were tagged by visa type, including F-2, F-4, F-5, F-6, D-10 and E-7, and it had a separate section for jobs offering E-7 sponsorship. Neither site states fees for job seekers; Saramin sells optional coaching services.

Strength: visa tags on each KoMate listing.
Strength: draws on Saramin’s employer base.
Weakness: KoMate published no listing count, and its volume is far below the main site’s.

JobKorea

JobKorea is Saramin’s main rival, with its sister site Albamon covering part-time work. For applicants who read Korean, JobKorea and Saramin together cover most private-sector listings, since some employers post on only one. Its foreigner platform, KLiK, which had offered machine translation into 28 languages, closed on 8 June 2026, according to a JobKorea notice that gave no reason. Former users were directed to foreign-national job searches on JobKorea and Albamon, which are in Korean.

Strength: wide coverage, from conglomerates to small firms.
Weakness: no foreigner-facing platform since KLiK closed.

Japan’s April 2027 change for lower-skilled workers

The largest scheduled shift in the region falls outside the job boards above. On 1 April 2027 Japan replaces its Technical Intern Training Program with a new Employment for Skill Development system, designed to move workers into Specified Skilled Worker status after three years, according to the Foreign Press Center Japan. The government plans to cap intake at about 426,000 in the first two years.

Trainee recruitment has run through sending organizations in workers’ home countries and supervising organizations in Japan, not through the boards in this directory. Our guide to Japan’s 2027 routes sets out the caps, tests and transfer rules.

Job Sites in Northeast Asia: 13 Boards Across Five Markets