Shoemaking Industry: Labor Intensive Production Is Coming To An End.

February 17th at this time of the year, Cordes (Hongkong)

"What is even more frightening is that it has arrived.

Over the years, China's labor supply has gone from surplus to structural shortage, and the rising labor cost has become an inevitable trend.

"Made in China" has come to a crossroads -- does labor-intensive industries still have advantages in China?

In order to cope with the rise of labor costs, many enterprises have begun to pform.

Xue Xiaowei sighed. What he is doing now is to push the mechanization level of factories to replace manpower.

Machine substitutes for labor

Xue Xiaowei said that in recent years, the mechanization level of factories has increased by 20%~30%, that is to say, 10 people were originally used, and now 3 people have been saved.

"Originally, we implemented the system of time work and now became a piecework system, with the purpose of improving the enthusiasm of workers.

For example, the screw is used. The worker used to screw it up one by one with his hands. Now he uses the machine four screws to fight together.

Xue Xiaowei said.

Shen Da, the boss of Shantou Weida toy factory, said that the compensation for workers' work-related injuries is high. Enterprises are most afraid of work-related injuries. Some dangerous links, such as injection molding machines, are simply equipped with manipulator and no longer use manpower.

Faster than people.

However, not all links can use machinery. Wang Wei said that shoemaking enterprises like him can hardly raise the level of mechanization. After all, most of the links still need people's hands, so we must recruit enough people.

Cheng Jiansan, director of the Pearl River Economic Research Center of the Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, told the newspaper reporter that during his investigation in the Pearl River Delta, he also found that enterprises that had done well in the industry had purchased various equipment to reduce their dependence on manpower, or to adopt new technologies and technologies to improve efficiency.

In addition to reducing the amount of labor, Shen said that after installing the manipulator, the uncertainty of the production line will be reduced a lot. For example, the failure rate, injury or delay caused by various reasons, the quality is more stable than manpower.

Either pformation or pfer.

In the early 90s of last century, data showed that the surplus labor force in rural China was between 100 million ~2 and then gradually reduced.

Cai Fang, a scholar of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and other data based on 2005 data show that the pferable labor force in rural China is only 43 million 570 thousand.

At the same time, with the rapid rise of the central and western regions, a large number of local surplus labor force has been absorbed, resulting in the pfer of surplus rural labor to the eastern coastal areas.

A direct consequence of the shortage of labour is the rise in wages.

Take Guangdong Province as an example, the province began to establish a minimum wage guarantee system in 1994, and this year, the latest minimum wage standard has been raised, and 10 minimum wage standards have been adjusted.

The minimum wage in Guangzhou in the first half of 2006 is 684 yuan, which will reach 1300 yuan after March this year. It has almost doubled in 5 years and is not the same as GDP growth.

In the same period, the per capita disposable income of urban residents in Guangzhou was 19851 yuan in 2006, 30659 yuan in 2010, and only 54% in 4 years, far below the GDP growth rate.

{page_break}

Another data showed that in 2005 compared with 2009, the average monthly income of migrant workers increased from 872 yuan to 1417 yuan, an average annual growth rate of 12.9%.

It is worth noting that the wage increase in the Midwest accelerated and the wage gap in the eastern part of the country was significantly reduced.

"Rising labor costs force companies to improve traditional production processes, raise the level of mechanization and reduce labor dependence, which will become more and more evident in the future."

Cheng Jiansan said that the traditional labor intensive production mode has come to an end. If the enterprise wants to survive, it will either upgrade or pform or pfer. In the process, China's manufacturing structure is also moving towards a more high-end direction.

In fact, according to the historical experience of Japan and other regions, it is precisely from the end of 60s to 80s of the last century, where labor costs increased considerably, that various industries in Japan accelerated the process of mechanization, automation and intellectualization to improve labour productivity.

The factory opens to the door of the worker's house.

But Xue Xiaowei also pointed out that when the factory improves mechanization to a certain extent, the cost will increase substantially, and the price of the products will be greatly increased. For example, the price of automatic computerized embroidered textiles is much more expensive than manual labor. The labor force is China's advantage, so the low-cost advantages made in China will be gone.

In order to maintain low cost labor force, many enterprises choose to move inland.

Wang Wei said he had just opened a new factory in Chongqing.

"I had done a survey in the factory and found that most of the workers came from Sichuan, Chongqing and Henan, so I had to leave the factory at the door of the workers."

And the factory recruitment situation in Chongqing is just the opposite of that in Dongguan factory. Wang Wei said that the factory in Chongqing started a few days ago, and the recruitment situation was very good. In fact, before the factory started to recruit workers, more than 200 people came to consult, and they were all skilled workers who had worked for many years. They had to go back to work in the coastal area, and now they can just get employed at home.

In terms of wages, the wages of Chongqing factories are lower than that of Dongguan, 300~400 yuan, which is equivalent to that of Dongguan in the previous year. "But they are very happy."

Wang Wei said that the factory in Dongguan should be observed for another two years. If the recruitment situation is more severe and the cost will increase even more, the factories in Dongguan will be turned off and the production capacity pferred to Chongqing as long as headquarters remain in Dongguan.

In fact, with the "shortage of migrant workers" and the increasing labor costs, more and more labor-intensive manufacturing industries have been pferred to the inland areas and other cost depressions.

In the "12th Five-Year plan" of various localities, the eastern coastal cities are careful to set single digit economic growth indicators, while the western region has already liberalized two digit high speed growth.