Abstract: Stabilizing employment and retaining talents, as an important national initiative against a backdrop of turbulent environment outside, has attracted increasing attention from both academic and practical circles. Unlike prior researches mostly grounded in the economic and sociological logic, we depart from the Chinese context, follow the Chinese core ideology of "labor upmost", take a career perspective that can reflect the dialectical mechanisms between individuals' activeness and passivity, and leverage on the cognitive framework of Yin-Yang harmonizing to explore the impacts of individuals' career competencies and career sustainability on their long-term residence intentions. We employ SmartPLS3.0 to analyze 196 survey data by building a series of structural equation models. Results show that:(1) Career competencies are positively related to individuals' long-term residence intention; (2) Career sustainability is positively related to individuals' long-term residence intention; (3) The interactions between career competencies and career sustainability are negatively related to individuals' long-term residence intentions. The antagonistic interacting effects embody the idiosyncrasy of dynamic balancing at the heart of Yin-Yang harmonizing cognition. The main contributions of this paper are as follows. (1) Built upon the distinctive institutional environment of China, this research rooted in the conceptualization of labor in the Marxist philosophy expands and makes sense of the notion of career that was originally defined by Western instrumental value; it thus enriches relevant literature; (2) The hypotheses development underpinned by the cognitive frame of Yin-Yang harmonizing provides novel insights into understanding the intricate interactions among variables in the field of Chinese human resource management; (3) Integrating the philosophical perspective with the post-Covid-19 context, this research offers important reference for the government and enterprises to formulate and implement the policies related to career development, recruitment and retention of talents.

Key words: labor, Yin-Yang, career competency, career, sustainability, residence intention