China's exporters fret over labor shortage

But the television and computer components company has just one-fifth of the 300 people it needs to work the assembly line to fill those orders by the end of June.

“Our hair is turning grey because of the anxiety,” a company executive, who would only give her surname Wu, told AFP, explaining that the firm was recruiting everywhere — on pavements, near food markets and with job agencies.

“If we cannot deliver on time, our credibility with foreign clients will certainly get damaged. They will turn to other suppliers and that will cause serious losses to us.”

Huada is one of thousands of companies in China's coastal exporting belt now grappling with a massive labor shortage, just one year after the economic crisis put some 20 million migrant workers out of work.

The eastern province of Zhejiang, where Huada is based, is facing its worst labor shortage since 2003, with an average of 383 jobs on offer for every 100 registered job seekers, said provincial labor department official Ren Jianjun.

In Guangdong, China's industrial powerhouse in the south, plants were already 900,000 workers short by late February, according to government data.

Experts say the reasons for the coastal shortfall are multiple — from better work opportunities and lower cost of living in the country's interior to the fact that many are denied social services when they leave their hometowns.

“Young workers are no longer prepared to accept indefinitely the appalling working conditions their parents put up with,” said Geoff Crothall of the Hong Kong-based China Labor Bulletin, an advocacy group.

Migrant laborers have long been the foot soldiers of China's economic miracle, toiling far from home for little pay in often dangerous construction or factory jobs as well as positions in service industries that others refuse.

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