Urumqi city has 343 universities, colleges and schools. There are 13 higher level learning institutions famous in the state. This includes Xinjiang University, Xinjiang University of Finance and Economics, Xinjiang Agricultural University and Xinjiang Medical University. In 2006, the number of students for higher learning had reached 99,100, increased by 4.4 percent than the previous year. In 2006, the city had 69 scientific research and technological development institutes, containing 45,000 technical staff, 80 percent among the total scientific and technical workers in Xinjiang. Urumqi has five comprehensive scientific academies, which are branches of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xinjiang Academy of Sciences, Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Xinjiang Academy of Animal Husbandry, Xinjiang Academy of Forestry Sciences, and 75 scientific research institutes.

Monthly salaries: 2,500 yuan for senior staff, 1,000-1,200 yuan for technicians and 700-800 yuan for common workers.

Social insurance is based on the gross payroll. For unemployment insurance, the work unit pays two percent and the individual pays one percent. For the endowment insurance, the work unit pays 20 percent, and the individual pays five percent. For the employment injury insurance, the work unit pays 0.4 percent. For the maternity insurance, the work unit pays 0.8 percent. For the medical insurance, the work unit pays 6.5 percent, and the individual pays two percent.

In 2006, the Urumqi high-tech development zone analyzed the personnel structure in 177 scaled companies and high-tech companies in the zone, totaling 19,798 people. The result showed the zone had 38 people with PhD degrees, 249 people with master’s degrees, 2,347 people with bachelor degrees and 1,940 people graduated from technical secondary schools. Among them, 521 people had senior technical titles, 1,432 people had intermediate technical titles and 1,820 people had junior technical titles. The development zone carries out the strategy of invigorating the zone with talents. It furnishes services to talents working in the development zone, including continuing social insurance, transferring Party membership credentials, technical title appraisal and research project application.

The high-tech development zone helps to address problems relating to household registration and schooling for the children and employment of spouses of the talents. Until now, the development zone has set up a four post-doctoral scientific research workstation in Xinjiang Osmen Biotechnology Co, Ltd, Xinjiang Ciconhabo Uygur Pharmaceutical Co, Ltd, Xinjiang Zongheng Co, Ltd, and Xinjiang Tefeng Pharmaceutical Co, Ltd. The development zone has also set up a talent service center to offer a platform for communication between companies and talents through the channels of talent agencies, talent markets, a high-tech network, talent training and talent dispatching. This is done to constitute a system of allocating talents in a rapid and efficient approach with low costs and multiple controls.