Survey of the Pearl River Delta: Chinese manufacturing encounters labor shortage in advance

The gap between the salary provided by enterprises and the ideal level in the minds of workers is too big. As a result, workers often change jobs or go back to their hometowns to find their way out. Editor's note: Yearly, it suddenly became a “guan” that Chinese companies could not overcome. This year's year is very special, labor shortages are ahead of schedule, and companies are unable to continue to use "raise raise" to attract employees, because the continued appreciation of the value of the company will squeeze out the only profits. These are the difficult problems facing China's manufacturing industry sooner or later, but they have really come and they are extremely cruel.

Guangzhou Jinghua Optics Co., Ltd. is currently very short of work – this home worker, who generally maintains a 1,000-person optical optoelectronic equipment company, wants to recruit another 50 ordinary workers before the Spring Festival, but it has never been able to find it.

"It's not a question of wages. It's not going to be enough. Everyone would rather go home and wouldn't want to move forward on the Spring Festival." said Huang He, deputy general manager of Jinghua Optics. The monthly salary of this enterprise worker has exceeded 3,000 yuan, which is still relatively high in the same industry.

Coincidentally. In a national large-scale chain hotpot restaurant in downtown Guangzhou, the Hunan-based waitress Liu Huayu is cleaning up the table. The movements are large and the dishes are slammed. A guest jokingly asked her: Are you not afraid to be "fired" by your boss? She replied that I did not want to do it. I was afraid that he would not dare to speculate. Now the shortage of workers is terribly bad.

The waitress refused to disclose her salary level, but she said, "It's more than 2000 yuan."

Lack of work, lack of work, in previous years, was a headache for the company after the Spring Festival, this year ahead of schedule.

During the New Year's Day ahead of the shortage of workers, the reporter visited the Yonghe Development Zone in Guangzhou and found that it was deserted a lot. The reporter passed eight construction sites, of which only one was under construction.

"Some people are worried that the cold wave can't buy tickets, plus the Spring Festival is a bit earlier than in previous years. This year's 'employment shortage' has emerged in advance." The owner of Luo Ying's employment agency told reporters. "The workers returning from the Asian Games when they stopped work did not come back. The employment situation in the month before the holiday was even more tense. We are now unable to find people with a list."

The construction industry is "injured" in the "labor shortage," and the labor-intensive catering and garment industries are also "brothers". In the town of Humen Town, Dongguan City, the clothing industry concentrated in the town of the road, almost all clothing companies are posted at the entrance notice. The reporter saw that in a company's workshop, there are only 20 workers in 70 or 80 stations. In Xiqiao Road, Baiyun District, Guangzhou, a job advertisement was posted at the entrance of Jiucheng Bistro.

Although Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province, has not yet experienced the phenomenon of lack of work, but companies have already started to worry about after the Spring Festival.

As the largest textile fabric production and trading center in Asia, Shaoxing City needs 1 million migrant workers from other regions every year. However, when this year Shaoxing recruited large-scale labor forces in the remote, poorly-employed mainland, it was officially rejected by the government for the first time.

“This is the first time in history,” said Zhang Hao, deputy director of the employment authority of Shaoxing City. “In the past, they were all asking us to recruit people. Now we don't welcome us.”

Zhang Hao said that the Employment Administration will annually require enterprises to report employment needs, and then provide uniform employment information to the employment management departments in Sichuan and Chongqing. The other side organizes workers. For many years, migrant workers' exporting and importing fields have used docking labor as their government. A service for businesses and ordinary people.

What makes the Shaoxing Employment Administration even more disturbing is that the employment management departments in Sichuan and other places also send people to the Yangtze River Delta region to visit migrant workers in the province. “The name is called to visit. In fact, it is to mobilize. The purpose is to persuade the migrant workers to go back to work because the local people are starting to lack people,” said Zhang Hao.

"Of course, willing to not go back or see the migrant workers, after all, in fact, the wages of the game." Zhang Hao said.

In 2010, the labor and social security department of Shaoxing City conducted a sample survey. More than 75% of migrant workers expect to earn more than 1,800 yuan per month, eat and pack food, take a day off at least once a week, and pay their salaries on time and in full.

"Most of Shaoxing's enterprises are still unable to meet this requirement," said Zhang Hao.

In Yiwu, the world's largest distribution center for small commodities, business owners also began to worry about how many employees would return after the Spring Festival. Huang Yunlong, director of employment management at Yiwu City, believes that the key lies in the fact that the gap between the wages provided by the company and the ideal level of the workers’ mind is too great. As a result, workers frequently change jobs or return home to find alternatives.

The boss is tempted to leave people with “a month and a half to get four or five hundred yuan. I would rather go back to my hometown because all kinds of expenses are eliminated and the rest are almost the same.” At the Hangzhou Railway Station, Jiangxi Liu Xiangdong made it clear that he will not come out again next year. Working, "Unless you can earn 34,100,000 years, this is certainly not possible."

At the Nanyue Talent Market in Baiyun District, Guangzhou, Huang Jun, a Hunan guy who selected posts before the company's booth, said that he was not in a hurry to find a job: “Now, there are many new factories near my hometown, and it’s easier to find a job than before. I just want to come to Guangzhou. See if there are better opportunities for development."

The representative of Guangzhou Shipyard International Co., Ltd., Mr. Mai Dehua, said that he had just gone to the company's engineering team and touched it. After the Spring Festival, at most, only 80% of the workers could be returned.

In order to retain employees and wages, companies want to come up with a variety of ways. Taizhou Luqiao District Oulusha Co., Ltd. On the first working day of the new year, the chairman led the company’s senior and middle-level leaders to welcome the front-line staff to work at 90°.

In order to make the workers feel warm, they are willing to return. On January 10th, the Spring Festival ticket sales began. Wang Jianping, head of the administrative department of chord garment factory in Chang’an, Dongguan, began to busy booking tickets for employees: “Booking tickets is also very difficult, but It must be bought, and when it is not available, high-priced tickets will be purchased."

Helping employees to buy spring transport tickets has become a "method" for many companies in the Pearl River Delta to retain their talents. According to the statistics of the Guangzhou Railway Group, as of January 9, 3,540 companies have booked 650,000 tickets for Spring Festival travel groups, including 590,000 tickets before the festival and 60,000 return tickets for Hunan in the post-holiday period.

“The Spring Festival is approaching in 2011 and we warmly welcome your spouse and folks to come to the company for employment before and after the Spring Festival!” In mid-January, a listed company in Foshan, Guangdong Province, played such a “warm sentiment” job advertisement early, saying that “a large number of recruitment 30-45 Year-old (husband and wife) production workers, single migrant workers (mainly women).

“Warmly Welcome to Co-operative Spouses, Townspeople and Friends for Employment” seems to have become the company’s common slogan. “Now many companies have introduced introduction fees and rewarded employees to introduce their loved ones and fellow villagers to work. Now there are companies that commissioned me to come back and pull a 'village group' to come over during the Chinese New Year. However, I am not confident enough now,” said the boss of the Eagles Agency.

A special situation reporter survey this year found that recruitment difficulties have become the norm, and they are still “spreading” at various times of the beginning and the year. This is a long-term challenge for labor-intensive enterprises.

Enterprises generally believe that the reasons for this situation are complex. In the post-crisis era, international demand gradually recovers, and the order situation has entered a “variety of changes” is a major factor. The Yellow River said that taking Jinghua as an example, this winter in Germany and the United States as the main export target has been the production off-season for the past. The company began planning holidays and cuts in staff at the end of November last year, but the order was an abnormal one. After December, the Continuously, this breaks the rhythm of the company's employment and leads to lack of work.

“After entering the post-crisis era, affected by changes in the exchange rate, changes in raw material prices, and the overall impact of the debt crisis in the European market, foreign orders are increasingly shifting to short-listings and urgent orders, and we are afraid to consider the rising cost of labor. 'Hoarding' manpower, so recruitment is particularly difficult." The Yellow River said.

The fundamental change in the concept of employment of migrant workers is another important reason for the “labor shortage” of enterprises in the Pearl River Delta Region. According to many companies, many migrant workers began to move to second-tier cities because of the increased choice of migrant workers and their changing concepts. Although income is not as high as in big cities, they are close to home and have higher quality of life. This has led to the selection of China’s labor market from past companies. The "one-way era" of employees has gradually transformed into a "two-way era" in which companies and employees choose each other.

The company stated that due to the special production and employment situation encountered, it is feared that after the Spring Festival this year, Guangdong, a major province of migrant workers, will encounter a new round of “labor shortage”. "Even if our company's wage level is relatively high, it is well prepared for underemployment," said the Yellow River.

A new round of rising salary

What worries companies is also the most substantial solution to the problem of labor shortage. It is a new wave of rising wages for workers.

The Yellow River said he expects wages to increase by at least another 10% after the Spring Festival.

At the Canton Fair held from the end of October to the beginning of November last year, most of the companies visited by the reporter also agreed that the salary increase after the Spring Festival this year will be around 10%. According to a person in charge of a large Hong Kong-owned textile company in Guangzhou, the company’s nearly 6,000 workers’ salary has generally risen around 15% last year, and is expected to increase by another 8% to 10% this year.

"Isn't it going to rise? Now that the price of vegetables and oil are going up and the prices are going up too. Is it only if the wages don't go up?" said Liu Huayu. "I would like to introduce my fellow countryman here to work here. The hotel will also introduce me to the fee." ”

However, rising wages also make it difficult for many companies to support. Zhejiang Zhuji is the largest sock production base in the world, and its production of socks accounts for four-fifths of the world's total. Luo Fang, chairman of Zhuji Xinrun Hosiery Co., Ltd., said that he understands the idea of ​​workers improving their benefits, but the profits of textile companies are already on the verge of profit and loss, and there is little room for salary increases.

"The foreign trade situation in 2010 was very good. Orders were 30% more than last year, but they did not make any money. The price of cotton yarn doubled and the value of cotton yarn rose by more than 3%. How can a profit increase the salary of employees?" said Luo Fang.

Zhou Xiumei, chairman of Zhejiang Buchen Hosiery Co., Ltd., said that nowadays companies can only send “mental welfare and emotional benefits” to employees, and the space for processing investment is already very small. In order to enhance her feelings with her employees, her approach is to personally organize company employees to dine together and sing to KTV every month.

However, many companies struggling to support it started to recuperate. "To support this month first, it is not enough to move the factory back to his hometown in Sichuan. The cost is much lower." Chen Bo, owner of the Guangzhou take-off garment factory, reluctantly said.

If you do not enter, you will retreat. Wu Yi, a professor at the Guangdong Business School, believes that not only is it difficult to recruit workers, SMEs have low added value and weak bargaining power, and they are naturally in a weak competitive position. For enterprises, either transformation and upgrading, increase the number of machines instead of labor, increase brand value, or shift to the Midwest, but the transfer is also very difficult.

“On the positive side, this is also a historical opportunity to force industrial upgrading. The relevant departments should not only pay attention to the problem of labor loss and interruption, but also introduce measures to guide the transformation and upgrading of enterprises.” said Wu Yi.