This article examines collaborative initiatives individual foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) develop with China's vocational education and training (VET) schools amid localised shortages of skilled workers. It thus focuses on employer initiatives in responding to VET system weaknesses rather than, as is common, those weaknesses. Using Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) as the research site, it provides a local labour market perspective for understanding how firms have redirected their interactions with local VET institutions in an economically advanced area. As a mixed-method study, data collection was through face-to-face interviews with FIE managers and local government officials and firm-level surveys. Employer initiatives take a number of forms and follow diverse motivations. Motivations include firm-focused needs and commitments to improving the system. A firm's duration in SIP explains choices for more, and more demanding collaborations. Furthermore, through their collaborative programmes, the most engaged FIEs reshape those VET schools and also the choices of other local FIEs.