For the past month, Zhang Zhichun, an employee with a labor
service agency of Dongguan, a city of south China's Guangdong
Province, has been waiting at the labor force market center of
Guangzhou, capital of the province, from morning till night, trying
to "snatch" some migrant workers.
"Nearly 90 percent of the factories in Dongguan are in dire need
of workers, so I came to Guangzhou, once the shrine for millions of
migrant workers from China's vast countryside," said Zhang.
A city known for its numerous Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao
businesses, Dongguan boasts a floating population of more than six
million. The population of its local people is only three
million.
"In the past, a recruitment poster on wall could bring dozens of
people competing for one post, but now the situation has taken a
turn," said Zhang.
This situation in Dongguan is not unique in south China's Pearl
River Delta, one of the economic powerhouses of China since the
country adopts an opening policy to the outside world some 20 years
ago.
In Shenzhen, another city once digesting millions of migrant
workers to Guangdong Province, "nearly every Taiwan business is
craving for workers as the general worker shortage gap has reached
30 to 40 percent. As a result of labor force shortage, some
businesses have stopped accepting order sheets," said Liu Qiusheng,
executive vice director of the Taiwan Merchant Association of
Shenzhen, who is also an investor of stationery factories in the
city.
"Supply had been surpassing demand in the labor market of
Guangzhou until last spring when the demand for workers exceeded
the supply for the first time, and this year the gap of worker
shortage has become much larger," said Zhang Baoying, deputy
director of Guangzhou labor market service center.
According to enrollment records, the ratio of job seekers to
jobs offered is one to 1.2 or 1.3.
"Some 20 to 30 percent of posts are still vacant," said
Zhang.
Some labor force agencies in Guangzhou even went to other
regions to recruit workers. But the result was not good.
According to Zhang, an agency coming to central China's Hubei
province to recruit workers was only able to meet 20 percent of the
demand.
As for the reasons for the reverse between demand and supply,
Zhang said that the balancing economic development trend of China's
different regions contributes a lot.
"As a result of active local economy around the country, many
workers who would have left hometown to seek jobs in big cities now
would rather work at factories mushrooming in their hometown," said
Zhang.
"With a higher cost of living and a salary only some 300 yuan
(US$36.1) more than what a worker could earn in his hometown
each month, the charm of Guangzhou has been greatly reduced," said
Zhang.
This year's labor force market of the Pearl River Delta presents
the characteristics of what experts describe as an olive shape: the
demand for workers with advanced techniques and rich experiences
and that for manual workers able to do heavy physical labor are
great while the demand for general workers is basically
saturated.
"Now traditional labor-intensive industries including those
making clothes, shoes, toys, furniture, machinery are being
discarded by migrant workers as businesses with better working
conditions and higher income, such as electronic factories, have
become their first preference when seeking a job," said Liu
Qiusheng.
"It calls for a readjustment of the industrial structure of
Guangdong," said Liu.
A recent survey made by Guangdong provincial Labor and Social
Security Department (LSSD) in eight major industrial cities of the
Pearl River Delta shows that labor intensive enterprises, once the
most thriving industry of the region, are being troubled by worker
shortage.
"Compared with other regions of the country, the attraction for
migrant workers of Guangdong which still strongly depends on
traditional labor intensive industries, are weakening," said Huang
Linyan, head of the salary office of the LSSD of Guangdong.
Moreover, as Guangdong has recently increased its minimum
salary by some 100 yuan (US$12), which involves the social security
fund, labor intensive enterprises feel more pressure from the rise
of labor force cost.
"I will try raising salary to employ enough workers. But the
meager profits of the industry make the salary margin rather
small," said a businessman from Hong Kong who owns a shoe factory
in Guangdong.
Responding to the possible weakening of Guangdong's attraction
for migrant workers and talents in various fields, the provincial
government has started to adjust its policies in attracting foreign
capital, including promoting foreign-invested high- and
new-technological enterprises, research and development centers,
modern service sections and introducing foreign investment in labor
intensive enterprises to eastern and western parts and the
mountainous area of the province that are relatively laggard in
economic development.
(Xinhua News Agency August 8, 2004)