China faces shortages of migrant workers

[mawilson 2,133]

China faces shortages of migrant workers

By Tom Mitchell in Guangzhou

Published: February 25 2010 17:22 | Last updated: February 25 2010 17:22

One day last week, the welcoming committee sent by the world’s largest manufacturer

of microwave ovens waited in vain outside the main railway station in Guangzhou,

capital of China’s southern Guangdong province.

Liu Tingting, a recruiting executive with Galanz, chatted with a dozen uniformed colleagues

as migrant workers leaving the station streamed past them. All were wearing red and

yellow sashes emblazoned with the message that “Galanz welcomes you”. But there were

few new recruits to welcome.

“The global financial crisis has eased and orders are coming back, but the labour shortage

is relatively severe,” Ms Liu said, admitting that her team’s effort was an unusual one.

“We don’t usually come to the train station to look for workers.”

China officially returned to work this week, after the end of the lunar new year holiday,

with factory managers more optimistic than ever that the worst of the global financial crisis

is behind them. There is just one problem – the workers many factories were so quick to

let go in late 2008 and early 2009 are not lining up outside their gates any more.

“It’s kind of a scary situation, quite frankly,” said Charles Hubbs, the American owner of

Fortunique, a Guangzhou-based medical products manufacturer.

“If we were to get swamped with orders, where would we get the workers? There are

going to be some interesting times ahead,” he said.

After 14 months of year-on-year declines, the value of China’s exports finally increased in

December. According to the General Administration of Customs, China’s foreign trade figures

for January recovered to 2008 levels. Then confirmation this month that China had pipped

Germany as the world’s largest exporter reinforced confidence that the country’s factories

are back.

The workers they rely on, however, are not back, in spite of ever greater inducements for

them to return. Galanz was seeking 1,250 workers for a range of posts paying between

Rmb1,700 ($249, £161, €184) a month for entry-level positions and Rmb2,800 for more

skilled technicians.

“We haven’t found anyone today,” Ms Liu admitted, clutching flyers that smacked of desperation.

They boasted of complimentary food for the first month of employment, cooling herbal teas

on hot days, free dorm rooms with en suite washrooms and hot water, and computer, library

and leisure facilities.

Workers’ ambivalence towards such offers is partly due to better opportunities closer to home.

In previous years, Zhuang Benchao would have been a potential recruit for Galanz. Last

year he worked in Huizhou, a manufacturing town east of Guangzhou.

This week, he could instead be found waiting for an interview outside the gates of a large toy

factory in his hometown of Shaoguan, the largest city in Guangdong’s poor and mountainous

northern region, close to the border with inland Hunan province. “It’s better to work closer to

home,” said Mr Zhuang, 20, who lives in Shaoguan’s city centre with his parents. The young

man’s conviction that there is no place like home is at least good news for Early Light, the

Hong Kong-owned toy factory where he was being interviewed.

Early Light has had to source workers from as far afield as Xinjiang, in China’s far north-west.

A riot at the toy factory in July, pitting Han Chinese workers against their Muslim Uighur

colleagues left two of the latter dead and was the spark for an even worse bloodletting in

Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, where an additional 200 people died in inter-communal clashes.

Back in Guangzhou, companies such as Fortunique are adapting to the more challenging

human resources environment by turning to temporary workers who, Mr Hubbs says, “are

not looking for a career in the factory”. Temps account for just over 10 per cent of his factory’s

400-strong workforce and provide a “short-term shot in the arm when you need it”.

At the other end of the talent spectrum, the American entrepreneur has begun hiring

university engineering graduates for supervisory positions previously filled by older workers

with experience on the manufacturing lines.

“We want to review how we do things and how we can do things with less hands,” Mr Hubbs

said. “We think we can do that with better educated university graduates who come in with

a fresh approach.”

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[luckytxn 2,265]

Hope that this does not mean that the prices at Wal Mart will go up.

[Darnell 8,479]

Workers’ ambivalence towards such offers is partly due to better opportunities closer to home.

Nobody in China WANTS to be a Migrant Worker.

They become migrant workers because they HAVE TO - with No Jobs in their city?

They go to guangdong province, live in/around shenzhen, for a year.

Meanwhile, they've parked their 1 child with grandma, for that one year.

No One Wants to Do That. It's a big loss of face.

Coming home is such a joyful occassion - they get to see that ONE Child, for a week, during CNY.

To learn that more opportunities can be had at home.

So they apply, and usually, get that job at home.

It's a better thing, doesn't #### up their hukuo any longer.

IMO, it's a better sign of 'China Prosperity' that some OTHER enterprising entrepreneur has figured out how to make things, do things, in that 'home city', and is able to 'keep the local workers', err. LOCAL !

Yay Home !

Go Home !

#### all on a migrant job - everyone wants to stay home and work and raise that baby.

What a curious spin on 'that report', the week starting after CNY.

Edited February 25, 2010 by Darnell

[Ban Hammer 13,641]

maybe we can send them our illegals.

[mawilson 2,133]

maybe we can send them our illegals.

I.e. "deport them to their country of origin."

- "But... I am not Chinese! I am Mexican! Yo soy Mexicano!"

- "Shut the #### up, Chinaman! You're going back to Shanghai!"

[spookyturtle 9,466]

maybe we can send them our illegals.

We could sell them to China to pay back our loans.

[Darnell 8,479]

We could sell them to China to pay back our loans.

Or we could do a 1:1 swap with non-paid MicroSoft license fees.