Marzullo has noticed that most of the positions for foreigners in Shanghai are related to business management, marketing and finance. She is proficient in none of these.

"Hopefully, I can find a job that matches my education background as soon as possible, with a basic monthly salary of about 7,000 yuan ($1,100)," she said.

A number of headhunters and human resources consultancies have opened special sections to help foreigners find jobs.

"We've noticed that there are fresh graduates having problems finding jobs in China, for they lack work experience, which is essential if a foreigner wants to work in the country. We've suggested they go back to their home countries and return when they have at least two years' experience," said Tan Qian, an account manager in charge of foreigner recruitment at FESCO Adecco, one of the leading HR services companies in China.

As a HR services company, FESCO Adecco has long-term agreement with the government of South Korea to hold two job fairs annually in Beijing and Shanghai to help South Koreans find jobs in China.

Facts and Figures

There are 143,200 foreigners in Shanghai from 214 countries and regions all over the world in 2010, while most numerous members of that group were citizens of Japan, the United States and the South Korea.

Foreigners working in Shanghai had on average received an education of 12.8 years, prior to coming to Shanghai, and 71 percent of them had obtained degrees above the college level.

More than half of the city's 208,300 foreign residents from overseas live on their own, while just over 20 percent of the demographic have a spouse from the Chinese mainland

Some 54.2 percent or 112,900 people comprising Shanghai's overseas population are without family in the city, while 24.3 percent people have married someone from the Chinese mainland last year.

According to statistics from the sixth national census released by the National Bureau of Statistics, a total of 593,832 foreigners currently reside in China.