By staff reporter Zhao Xiaojian

From the beginning of 2004, businesses in China’s bustling southeastern coastal areas have seen a massive exodus of migrant workers. Analysts say this is a manifestation of ongoing silent resistance on the part of rural laborers against coerciveness and unequal treatment . It also forecast s an end of predatory usage of rural labor and the beginning of the establish ment of a n equal social security system to protect the rights and interests of migrant workers.

Farmers, unlike city dwellers, are discriminated against and excluded from enjoying equal residency rights, says Guo Hong, a researcher with the Sichuan Provincial Academy of Social Sciences. "This is the main reason behind the trend of migrant worker breakaways," he said.

"If the government allocates 4.9 billion yuan out of its 34.9 billion yuan annual net revenue to help migrant workers with housing and education for their children, makes the social security system more accessible , and provide s training programs to support career development, then the migrant worker shortage could be fixed immediately ," Dr Liu Kaiming, a researcher who has focused on China’s migrant worker problem for many years, told Caijing Magazine when referring to the migrant worker problem in China’s southern city of Shenzhen, where four fifths of the 10-million population are not Shenzhen natives. Some 4.85 million of the city’s residents are migrant workers.

" The inadequate social system for migrant workers discourage them from staying in cities , and a large number of workers can not make enough to live in Shenzhen," Liu said.

The Investigation Report on the Migrant Worker Shortage, compiled and published in September by China’s Ministry of Labor and Social Security, shows that some areas in C hina are suffering from the worker shortage problem. The report also finds that the shortage of young female workers is especially serious, and that labor-intensive enterprises with relatively lower remuneration package s , poorer working conditions and heavier workload s suffer most.

The shortage of rural labor ers employed by enterprises in the more highly developed coastal regions in southeastern China has been intensifying since the Chinese New Year in early 2004; when migrant workers returned home for the festival, many did not return. Furthermore, from the second half of 2004, the labor shortage has also spread to some enterprises in inland areas, much closer to the homes of most migrant workers.

This phenomenon is a substantial reverse from the mid-1980s, when millions of rural laborers started pouring from inland areas into coastal cities seeking employment, a phenomenon described as " the rural labor migration upsurge".

Migrant workers are those who hold residence registration certificate s from rural areas but are employed to do non-agricultural work, say sociologists.

China currently has more than 200 million migrant workers from rural areas, compared to approximately 99 million in 2003.

Who suffers?

The investigation report by China’s Ministry of Labor and Social Security shows that labor-intensive enterprises with comparatively low wages, heavier workload and poorer working conditions suffer the most from the labor shortage, and enterprises offering a monthly salary of less than 700 yuan are finding it especially difficult to recruit new workers.

The report also noted that industries experiencing heated competition such as shoe manufacturing , toy manufacturing, electronics, clothing and plastics processing are the most affected by the labor shortage predicament. Taiwanese enterprises and medium to small enterprises are also on the distress list.

" The m igrant labor shortage is a kind of punishment for the distortion of China’s labor market price," said Long Yongtu, former head of China’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC, predecessor of the Ministry of Commerce), when speaking at an economist forum in November.

The hourly wage for workers in the manufacturing sector in China is 25% of that in Mexico or Malaysia, or one fortieth of that in the US or Japan, according to some international studies.


Besides, several migrant workers currently employed in China’s Southeastern region told Caijing some enterprises require overtime work of more than 130 hours per month without paying overtime , or even arbitrarily cancel holidays and leave days.

Wanted: Young Female and Skilled Workers

Young female migrant workers and skilled workers aging from 18 to 25 are the most desirable employees by enterprises, the investigation report said.

But young laborers of 18-25 years old, or those born after 1980, have been increasing very slowly as a result of China’s one-child policy implemented in the end of the 1970s.

Scarcity of highly skilled workers is another factor hampering the growth of enterprises around China.

The skilled and senior skilled workers required by enterprises should account for 14% of the total labor force, while that ratio from the supply side is less than 4%, a questionnaire on labor markets of 40 cities by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security shows.

T he key reasons behind the shortage of skilled workers are the l ack of professional schools to train technicians and the lack of relevant training courses sponsored by enterprises, another investigation report released by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security said, adding that enterprises currently are desperate for quick success and instant benefits from workers but pay no attention to training.

Forty-Year-Old Ceiling

Some scholars also said that the "40-year-old ceiling" is another reason for the migrant worker shortage. This means that migrant workers older than 40 are fired by enterprises. E nterprises tend to minimize expenditures, including training expenditures for migrant workers, who have to do labor-intensive entry-level work day by day without career development. At 40 they must return to their hometowns.

The predatory usage of migrant workers during the industrialization process does not only damage rural labor resources, but also exhausts labor resources for the whole country. Scholars call on more and higher level training of migrant workers , and warn that "using without cultivating" will cause a depletion of labor resources.