TOKYO – As Japanese firms continue to build operations in China, demand for trilingual employees to work in those businesses is increasing, according to a firm that runs Japan’s largest online bilingual job search site.

DaiJob, Inc., which started up in 1998, has until now primarily met the needs of foreign firms operating in Japan for bilingual employees.

But since last year, a steady stream of Japanese firms have knocked on its virtual door with advertisements for trilingual people who are willing to work in China.

At the same time, an increasing number of people with the ability to speak Mandarin or Cantonese along with English and Japanese are posting their resumes on DaiJob’s Web site, according to the firm’s chief executive Jonathan Doherty.

DaiJob has seen an across-the-board increase in the demand for candidates with ability in Chinese, both in our online postings as well as in executive search orders,” Mr. Doherty told Dow Jones Newswires in a recent interview.

On DaiJob’s Web site, jobs on offer in China include positions for information-technology managers, research analysts, project managers with engineering teams, factory managers, and marketers.

“The growth (in this area) will be exponential,” Mr. Doherty said. “Everybody is going to China.”

Of the nearly 23,000 people with resumes posted on DaiJob’s Japanese language site – the largest of its kind in Japan – just over 3,700 speak Mandarin and over 750 speak Cantonese.

The number of Mandarin speakers among those posting resumes on the site has grown by 100 just in the past month and a half, according to officials at DaiJob.

“Everyone can speak Japanese and English these days,” Mr. Doherty said. “We’re now encouraging candidates to learn another language.”

Of the 10,000 jobs posted on the Web site, only 130 so far are based in China. But this number was near zero last year and Mr. Doherty says that DaiJob has yet to heavily market this aspect of its business.