Worker dearth worsening
- Source: Global Times
- [02:05 February 22 2010]
- Comments
By Yin Hang and Kang Juan
Factories in the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta and other export-oriented industrial regions of China are suffering from a worsening labor dearth after the Spring Festival, in contrast with a year ago, when 20 million unemployed migrant workers across the country gave up on life in the cities and returned to their villages as the global financial crisis stymied exports.
Scholars, however, stress that the labor shortage is a fallacy, saying what China lacks is positions with fair remuneration and skilled workers who can meet the requirement of industrial transformation.
Jia Yuxing, a human resource manger for an electronics company in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, had to rush back to work a day earlier as his boss asked him to urgently recruit 1,000 more workers after the seven-day holiday to meet the demand of rising orders.
"We dispatched several teams of people to cover almost every large-scale job fair held in the city, but we ended up recruiting fewer than 10 people each time," Jia told the Global Times Sunday.
The company offered approximately 1,000 yuan ($146) as basic monthly salary plus accommodation, an annual bonus and insurance for primary-level workers, a fair package compared with the local minimum wage of 770 yuan per month, set in early 2008.
"But still, it'll take at least three months to fill all the remaining vacancies if we are fortunate enough to," Jia predicted.
The rapidly rebounded economic outlook at the start of the year of the tiger has brought the company an unprecedented amount of orders, which requires 3,000 employees, far more than the 1,200 now, according to Jia.
Jia's company is situated in Chang'an town in Dongguan, a city dubbed the "world's factory." The local labor bureau estimates that the shortfall of workers, which dates back to August, is more than 200,000, with 80 percent of positions for primary-level workers in labor-intensive industries such as electronics, furniture, clothing and toy manufacturing.
Fan Biyou, a 43-year-old Hunan-born migrant worker, has worked at a garment factory in Dongguan as a security guard since late 2006.
Few migrant workers are seen near the factory these days, at a time when, in the past, scores of them would be returning to work, Fan said.
"Many factories here cannot find enough workers and have to lower their requirements. They started to hire people who are in their 40s and even 50s, and even a junior high school leaver like me can earn 1,200 yuan a month," Fan said, adding that young age and senior high schooling used to be the minimum requirement for jobs at large factories in the region.
Many companies even dare not accept orders due to the labor shortfall. "The situation is the best in recent years, even better than before the global crisis. Our company could suffer millions of dollars in losses if we can't fill the vacancies," Jia said.
In nearby Shenzhen, the labor shortfall was more than 800,000 in the fourth quarter of 2009, a government report released early this month showed. Local officials said that the minimum wage, now at 1,000 yuan per month, will be raised this year. Dongguan and some other cities in Guangzhou are also considering a similar move.
Similar situations haunt not only the Pearl River Delta area, but also the Yangtze River Delta area, another export heartland in eastern China. The Minhang District of Shanghai alone requires an extra 1,000 workers, mainly in manufacturing and service industries, a director in a local employment service center for migrant workers was quoted by the Wuhan Evening newspaper as saying.
