“Recruiting is always hard after Spring Festival but it is even worse in 2010,” said TangJianjun, human resource director for Shanghai Yuzunzijue Entertainment, which runs achain of nightclubs. “Companies in the service industry, like ours, are the hardest hit bylabor shortages because most migrant workers think working as a waiter or attendant ismenial. Once they have choice, they won’t choose us.”
Bosses at Shanghai Yihsin Industry, a laptop manufacturer under Huan HsinHoldings, said they plan to add 1,000 assembly line workers to its staff in March 2010 butare reluctant to raise salaries above the minimum wage of 980 yuan set by the municipalauthority.
“Manufacturers have a very low profit margin. If we raise their pay we face a situationwhere we will have no profit at all,” said human resource director Sun Yiduo. “Shanghaihas the highest minimum wage on the Chinese mainland, so it is easier to hire herethan elsewhere. Recruiting for our factories in Qingdao (Shandong province), where theminimum is 760 yuan a month, has been so much harder.”
The labor shortage is the result of many factors, say analysts, but one of the biggest isthe sudden rush in overseas and domestic orders being received by factories.
Dongguan recorded exports worth almost 5 billion in January, an increase of 34percent over the same month in 2009, as trade continued to return to post-financial crisislevels, according to a spokesman for the foreign economic and trade department. However,by the end of Feburary 2009, less than half of the three million migrant workers wholeft Guangdong and headed home for Spring Festival had returned, said Zhang Xiang, apublicity official with the provincial labor authority.
“Many companies restarted operations earlier than expected after the Lunar New Yearas they secured more orders,” said Zhang. “They had to cut employees during the globalfinancial crisis, now they need even more to sustain growth.” Firms began hiring temporaryworkers during the second half of 2009 when business started to bounce back, but nowthey need a long-term employment strategy, he said.
The success of the nation’s 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package in creating more jobopportunities outside of the nation’s industrial and economic centers has also contributedto the shortage, argue experts.
A poll of migrant laborers by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security in2010 found that 62 percent planned to return to the jobs in Pearl River and Yangtze Riverdeltas after the Lunar New Year festivities, reported Xinhua News Agency. However, 30percent could not guarantee they would go back.
Because of the high costs of living in the big cities, most workers are prepared toaccept lower salaries for jobs closer to their families.
Xiao Zhiheng, vice-governor of Guangdong, said many farmers in the western,northern and eastern parts of the province have chosen to work for companies that haveopened bases close to their hometowns as part of an industrial transfer plan introduced in2008.
The rapid development of other regions, such as the Beibu Bay, off the coasts of theGuangxi Zhuang autonomous region and Hainan Island, and Bohai Bay in Liaoningprovince, has also helped divert laborers, said Zhang Yi, a researcher with the populationand economic research institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Science.
“Massive construction projects in inner regions, which are traditional sources of labor,are now attracting laborers themselves. So it is no surprise companies in the Pearl RiverDelta have found it hard to find staff,” he said.
Authorities in Shanghai and Guangdong have both adopted measures to help migrantworkers and factories, including providing professional skills training, and officials saidthey are confident laborers will start to flood back into the deltas. However, experts arenot so confident and suggest that the lay-offs and pay cuts rolled out at the height of thefinancial crisis in 2009 may put some people off from venturing away from home.
“Both governments and companies need to change their attitude towards the migrantworkforce,” said Zhang Yi. “They need respect, and need stable and guaranteed lives. If theenterprises expect to always have laborers at their disposal, this kind of shortage will alwaysbe a headache.”
Xu Guangjian, vice-president of the school of public management at RenminUniversity of China, added: “Although the supply of migrant workers is still abundantnationwide, an aging population coupled with a reduction in new labor in the long termmeans the bonus of China’s large population - cheap labor - will not be an inexhaustibleresource forever.”
To ease their reliance on cheap labor, enterprises in the deltas are being urged toimprove their use of technology.
“Sooner or later, labor is no longer going to be cheap in China and manufacturingcompanies will start to move elsewhere, just like what happened in Japan and SouthKorea,” said business leader Liu Yonghao. “Companies have to upgrade their technologiesand produce goods with more added value. Governments also must work with companiesto solve migrant workers’ problems with housing, medical insurance and education. Thiswill help them to feel safer when working in cities.”
Hangzhou textile boss Cao said he is already planning to buy new machinery to helpimprove efficiency and reduce the reliance on workers.
“If it helps to push forward industrial upgrading, the labor shortage may be a goodthing for companies, too,” added Dongguan Party chief Liu Zhigeng.
March 11,2010
‘Ants’ feel the bite of being forced out
‘Ant tribe’ slowly starts to flee as their village will be demolished.
Wang Huazhong in Beijing reports.
Chen Xuanfeng rattled the small lock on the screen door. “It doesn’t feel very sturdy,”
he said to the landlord showing him around a block of tiny apartments in northeastBeijing. He then looked at his girlfriend and shook his head.