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Updated Thursday, March 11, 2010 11:02 am TWN, By Fran Wang, AFP

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China's exporters fret over labor shortage

But decades of prosperity — along with Beijing's US$586 billion, infrastructure-focused stimulus package unveiled in late 2008 — have created more jobs in China's interior, leaving workers with more choices.

One official survey conducted before the Chinese New Year in mid-February, among more than 9,000 workers, found that only 62 percent planned to leave home for work after the holiday, six percentage points lower than in 2008.

Among those who said they would move, 29 percent said they would stay in the centre and west of the country, according to the survey by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

“The central and western areas are developing too. Even though the salaries may be a bit lower... the net income is often the same due to higher living expenses in the coastal areas,” said senior ministry researcher Mo Rong.

“There is room for migrant workers to be a bit more selective now.”

Some observers say the shortage is restricted to certain labor-intensive industries and linked to the New Year holiday, given the labor surplus in the country's rural areas was still as large as 100 million.

But officials and employers in the key export areas — China's so-called “workshop to the world” — are taking no chances that things will turn around on their own.

To attract workers, Guangdong labor authorities have urged companies to raise wages and provide better working and living conditions. Jiangsu province, also in the east, has already raised the minimum wage by 13 percent this year.

In Dongguan, a town in Guangdong known for toy and electronics exports, the average monthly salary of assembly-line workers increased in 2010 by up to 25 percent to 1,500 yuan (US$220) from 2008 levels, local job agencies say.

Some companies have even built on-site Internet cafes, table tennis rooms and basketball courts.

But Crothall said better pay and amenities would ultimately not be enough.

“Even a wage of 2,000 yuan will not go very far in a place like Shenzhen or Shanghai,” he said.

Unlike their parents, who eventually returned to work their farms in the countryside, the new generation of migrant workers wants a better future in China's growing cities.

Even the country's Communist leadership realises this, with Premier Wen Jiabao vowing last week in his state of the nation address to reform the country's increasingly unpopular household registration, or “hukou,” system.

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