|
China badly needs 'gray-collars' for manufacturing
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-03-21 15:21 China is evolving into a huge
manufacturing base for the whole world, and sorely needs trained technicians,
dubbed "gray-collar" workers, according to economists.
The dearth of "gray collar" workers will become a major disincentive for the
further development of manufacturing in China, they believe.
In the next few years, enterprises, particularly those in the private sector,
should take the responsibility to cultivate gray- collar workers, combined with
an on-going government-supported training program, they suggest.
The gray-collar workers should have good education, be innovative, with
professional skills, according to Zheng Huiqiang, vice president of the Shanghai
Applied Technology College.
With skills that are rare resources for enterprises, senior technicians at
some large foreign-invested companies get salaries higher than those for
corporate managers.
Now it is harder to recruit a senior technician than to enroll a master's
graduate or a PhD, said Professor Liu Zhilin, with the Liaoning Engineering
Institute in northeast China's Liaoning Province.
Of the 70 million technicians in China, less than five percent are senior
professionals, a proportion far below the 30-40 percent in developed nations.
Shanghai alone is short of 15,000 gray- collar workers, Zheng Huiqiang says.
The 2010 World Expo in Shanghai is expected to provide thousands of job
opportunities, 80 percent of which will be gray- collar ones, Liu Zhilin
predicts.
It is quite easy for graduates from the three vocational and technical
schools in Luzhou City of the hinterland province of Sichuan, southwest China,
to find a job even in the economically developed coastal regions, as there is a
short supply of such talented people nationwide, said Xiao Tianren, mayor of the
city. Most of the graduates have gone to regions boasting a flourishing
manufacturing industry, including the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River
Delta, Xiao says.
The major reason behind the insufficient supply is the fact that
middle-school graduates continue crowding into the narrow lane towards
university. The result is low enrollment and waste of human resources and
training equipment at vocational and technical schools, according to Liu Zhilin.
Liu says that in 2002, 60 polytechnic schools in Liaoning Province enrolled
only 17,000 students, 300 in each on average.
"We were worried about the scarcity of technicians, when universities have
increased their enrollment and cultivated too many bachelors, masters and
doctors for a virtually limited market of managerial personnel," Zheng Huiqiang
says.
Vocational training is an important way to cultivate gray- collar workers,
Zheng says.
He suggests that governments should encourage, through financially aiding
training services, both employed and unemployed people to participate in
vocational training programs, establish new certification criteria for the
training and improve a screening mechanism for talented professionals.
To this end, more than 500 Chinese professional training schools and 1,400
companies and enterprises have decided to join hands to cultivate gray-collar
and blue-collar workers.
This is the first step of a national program on cultivating talented people
with professional skills, jointly initiated by the Ministry of Education and
five governmental administrations, according to Wu Qidi, vice minister of
education.
The program will first cover four priority areas including numerical control
technology, computer and software and vehicle maintenance.
Under the program, Wu said, one million professionals will be trained in the
concerned fields from this year to 2007, with short- term training offered to
three million people.
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
Today's
Top News |
|
|
|
Top China
News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
