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Labor shortage emerges in Guangdong
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-08-08 14:22
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 to 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 at his home town 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 decribe 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.
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