SHANGHAI: As one of the more than 200 million people in China's huge migrant workforce, Lu Jun has had to hustle for jobs his entire life, but suddenly he finds he has more choices and bargaining power than ever. Lu, whose skin is tanned and his navy suit jacket faded from the sun, says he is standing taller these days as he surveys his many options at a state-funded job fair in Shanghai following the annual Lunar New Year holiday.
"Nowadays it's not easy to find an experienced worker like me," the 25-year-old Lu, who worked at a package printing factory in the eastern province of Anhui for five years, said proudly. China's vast worker pool, which has powered the explosive growth of its labour-intensive exports over the past decade, is tightening up, analysts say. That means that, while dissatisfied migrant workers are still seen as a source of potential unrest, power is tilting from employers to employees like Lu.
"The firm where I used to work has called me several times to ask me back. But their salary raise is not satisfying and I want a job in Shanghai just like my wife," Lu said, after casually asking a recruiter about wages. Lu's former employer offered him 3,800yuan ($578) a month, a 27 percent raise, but he aims to earn 4,000yuan and says he will "keep looking around until I find an ideal job". Chinese manufacturers and local governments are vying for the services of people like Lu as the labour crunch, the first signs of which surfaced in 2007, has spread from coastal export powerhouse zones to the rural heartland. The shortage is the result of three decades of rapid economic expansion colliding with demographic changes due to China's one-child policy, economists say.
"The overall story is clear, thanks to the decline in births 20 years ago, China's labour pool will likely stop expanding in size very soon," Stephen Green, an economist with Standard Chartered Bank, said in a research note. The impact is especially felt after the Chinese New Year holiday when many workers leave their jobs and do not come back. Outside Shanghai's main train station, a giant electronic billboard welcomed migrant workers to the city after the holiday. Labour woes in the world's second-largest economy made waves last year after Toyota, Honda and other foreign manufacturers were hit by a rare spate of strikes as workers demanded higher wages. Many ended up offering salary hikes. Once the disputes tapered off, a growing number of companies started looking at moving factories inland and offering migrant workers jobs nearer to their hometowns in the countryside, so as to improve employee morale.
"I am returning home and won't come back," 21-year-old Jiang Buyi, who just quit his job at an electronics factory in Shanghai, told AFP as he waited outside a bus station, taking a bite from a McDonald's hamburger.
"I am young and have a long way to go. So I need to pick up some skills. I'm going to learn how to do car repairs at a relative's shop," said Jiang, who is from Sichuan province in the southwest, a traditional source of migrant labour.
"Most of my co-workers are returning home to look for jobs too. A minimal salary increase here is nothing. Prices are rising faster than my wages," he said. Employers are feeling the effects of such sentiments. At the Shanghai job fair, Teng Kewu, an office director for machinery maker Shanghai Shenlong Enterprise, said: "I am under much bigger pressure this year as many southern companies are investing inland and attracting locals." In his own home town in Anhui, he said, authorities were helping local firms recruit by sending buses into the streets to bring people to job fairs.
"Hundreds of job seekers came around and the pay level has improved a lot compared with last year," the veteran recruiter said, but added that after three days, he had yet to meet his target of signing up 80 people. In addition to salary hikes, his company is spending money on setting up matchmaking events with nearby clothing factories, where workers are mostly female, in an effort to retain its young male staff. Mo Rong, a senior researcher with the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, played down concerns about a labour crunch, saying plenty of workers were willing to work for firms that offer higher pay. Shen Jianguang, a Hong Kong-based economist with Mizuho Securities, argued the labour shortage, expected to plague China in coming years, provides opportunities as well as challenges for the country's economy.
"It is an illustration that it is increasingly pressing for China to shift its growth pattern.”
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