Drought of Migrant Labor Beijing Review | 5 aug by Fan Ren http://www.bjreview.com.cn/200431/Nation-200431(A).htm
This year has seen the flood of migrant laborers, who traditionally travel to thriving coastal provinces in search of work, reduced to a trickle. As a result, many private companies have been adversely affected by this shortfall in labor, with some even having to downsize production or temporarily close their plants. What are the reasons behind this phenomenon?
Shishi, a coastal city in Fujian Province, nicknamed “City of Casual Clothing,” has a population of 300,000, including 200,000 migrant workers. Its 5,000 companies employ migrant workers as their predominant source of labor. This year, however, the city has been hit by a severe shortage of laborers. Scarcely one year ago it was a totally different picture. It was common to see several migrant workers compete for one job opportunity. Now to recruit enough workers, the personnel department of many companies have promised to pay a bounty of 100 yuan ($12.1, or around 12 percent of a laborer’s monthly wage) to anyone who can poach staff for them.
According to a report in Xinhua News Agency, since February, many small and medium-sized enterprises in Fujian Province’s coastal cities, like Fuzhou, Quanzhou, Putian and Jinjiang, have been facing a similar shortage of workers. Both skilled and ordinary workers are in great demand, with a combined shortage of 200,000 for the region. A survey conducted by the enterprise research agency affiliated to the Fujian Provincial Bureau of Statistics reveals that since the 2004 Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), the shortage of workers, especially skilled ones, has adversely affected the normal operation of enterprises based in Jinjiang. Only 80 to 85 percent of industrial enterprises and less than 50 percent of ceramic factories have been operating due to the labor shortage. Fujian Province’s coastal cities, a gold mine for the private economy, used to absorb over 1 million migrant workers every year, 80 percent of whom were from inland provinces.
Since the 2004 Spring Festival, Zhejiang, another coastal province famous for its thriving private economy, has also been hit by a shortage of migrant workers. Data shows that this year the number of migrant workers in the province has experienced a year-on-year decrease of 10 to 20 percent. Demand of migrant laborers in Zhejiang has for the first time exceeded supply in the last 20 years.
What’s more, the Pearl River Delta, which in the past was inundated with migrant workers, is also experiencing a severe shortage. According to a survey, there is a shortfall of 2 million workers in the central cities on the Pearl River Delta, such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Dongguan. Recruiting new workers has now become the top priority of many local enterprises.
The prosperity of the private economy in China’s eastern and southern coastal cities is for most part attributed to the cheap migrant labor, and the expansion of the manufacturing-based economy has provided more job opportunities for millions of surplus rural laborers. Currently, over one-third of China’s rural laborers are working in non-agriculture industries. According to a survey conducted by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture, the country’s total number of migrant workers had reached 99 million by the end of 2003. Undoubtedly, rural laborers have become the main body of manufacturing workers. Since the early 1990s, every Spring Festival has seen the seasonal flow of migrant workers between their working cities and their hometowns, which is described as the “tide of migrant workers.”
Why a Shortage of Workers?
Since migrant workers have become an indispensable part of Chinese cities, what has caused the current shortage of migrant workers in coastal cities?
First, as major exporters of migrant workers, two central provinces—Anhui and Jiangxi—used to export over 90 percent of their rural laborers during the peak of the migrant worker tide. But the importance the Chinese Government now attaches to issues concerning the countryside, agriculture and farmers, plus the rise in the price of agricultural products from September 2003 have made farmers think twice before they go to work in cities. As a result, a large number of rural laborers have changed their plans, with many taking back their contracted land (in China, every farmer receives a piece of contracted land to farm. When farmers do not want to farm their land, they usually transfer the land to other farmers), or swapping their single crop rice for double crop rice. This is a major reason behind the dwindling of migrant workers moving to cities after the 2004 Spring Festival.
Second, an unfavorable ratio between salary and expense is another reason for the drop in migrant workers. With economic development, the cost of living in coastal cities has kept going up, but migrant workers continue to earn relatively low wages. According to rough estimation, the monthly expense of a migrant worker in Hangzhou (capital of Zhejiang Province) is around 800 yuan ($96.6), while some 70-80 percent of migrant workers in the city have a paltry monthly income below 1,000 yuan ($128.8). Therefore, while working in cities, they have to eke out a frugal existence, sacrifice time with their families and travel long distances. When weighing these factors, many migrant workers chose to leave cities as their only way out.
Unequal Treatment
In addition, the unfavorable employment environment has caused the loss of migrant workers, something that cannot be ignored. Although the situation has improved a lot over recent years, migrant workers are still not well treated due to the differential treatment of China’s hukou system (residents registration system), social security system, and education and training system. For example, migrant workers without a local hukou are not allowed to buy economically affordable housing, and their children have to pay a large amount of extra fees to study in public schools. Employment discrimination is another problem. Some industries clearly refuse recruiting migrant workers for certain positions, meaning only the dirtiest and most strenuous work becomes available. Under such circumstances, although migrant workers aspire to the prosperity and modernization of cities, they clearly feel they are being discriminated against there. When their difficult circumstances overwhelms their aspiration, they will choose to leave the city for a more suitable environment.
Overall, migrant workers are becoming more and more rational in choosing their work places. Many now would prefer to opt for stability and sound social security over higher paying jobs.
Third, the incompatibility between low-quality labor and high demands of urban economic development has greatly affected the employment stability of migrant workers. In cities like Hangzhou, while the supply of migrant workers is diminishing and companies find it increasingly hard to recruit workers, a large number of migrant workers cannot find jobs. Recently, the success rate of migrant workers’ job seeking has stood below 50 percent, which is mainly caused by the gap between their poor technical and educational level and the demand of employers. According to a survey, 75 percent of migrant workers in Zhejiang have received an education under the junior middle school level and very few have received professional training. In the job market, however, most enterprises only recruit workers with a junior middle school education or above, and around 80 percent of enterprises require employees to be skilled. Menial jobs with no skill requirement will represent a smaller and smaller percentage. The current shortage of migrant workers is indeed a shortage of technical and skilled workers.
Social Impact
A Chinese sociologist pointed out that the shortage of migrant workers in essence reflects migrant workers’ disappointment with the local employment environment, which represents both the capacity of local enterprises and the credibility of local governments. Thus, to address this issue, local governments have to reconsider their administration model and traditional development concept.
The sociologist also believes that a severe social crisis lies behind the cities where local enterprises and governments only take migrant workers as productive tools and fail to create a sound environment for their well-being and self-improvement. He said the current shortage of migrant workers resulting from this dilemma is only the tip of the iceberg.
“To address the problem, local governments should take concrete measures to implement a people-oriented approach, reconsider and revise existing policies, and take initiatives to solve practical difficulties for migrant workers,” said the sociologist.
