Firms face huge shortage of labor
As job opportunities increase for migrant workers, companies are finding it hard to hire more workers they need. In addition, some migrant workers have chosen to stay home to develop new careers.
About 40 companies were on hand at a job fair in Zhuhai. In a complete turnaround from the past, many companies are feeling great pressure to hire enough workers.
Yuan Weiying, Zhuhai Fine Union FPC Co. said “We are short by 100 workers now. It’s hard to hire a worker. We sent out a lot of hiring information to some places, but we are still unable to find one. Our current workers can not meet the production requirements.”
Some companies began to show signs of an economic rebound with an increase of orders as of July. This triggered a greater demand for labor. A significant shortage of workers emerged in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions. Statistics show that the shortage of workers in Chongqing city has exceeded 30,000.
One employer said “In the past, 20 to 30 people would immediately reply as soon as we posted hiring information. But now, there is no one. We needed to hire 10 to 20 workers this time, but we only hired one person.”
Because of the economic rebound, company job postings have jumped by 20 percent from the same period last year. The workers’ wages have also gone up by 10 percent.
When the crisis hit last year, a lot of migrant workers from Liaoning province returned home following a reduction to their income. Most of them attended local training. A year later, about 60 percent of migrant workers in the province were re-employed at home, with some even starting their own businesses.
Wang Junjie, Manager of Shenyang Fulanerte Garment Factory said “Our income shrank a lot because of the global financial crisis. So I decided to come back to create my own business. With the help of my friend, I took part in a technician training class. I learned a lot from the class. Later, I found a small-sized processing factory.”
Since the crisis erupted, the local government in Liaoning province set up training classes to help workers upgrade their knowledge and skills. So far, about 170,000 workers have accepted training throughout the province.