Fact Finding Of Labor Shortage: Is It Real Or False?

Editor's note:

The graph of population flow over the past ten years shows that whenever every region is revitalized, the labor force will accelerate to flow there.

In March 4th, this increasingly limited labor market has frequent movements, and price signals are both sensitive and abundant. Compared with previous single wage comparisons, those migrant workers after financial crisis education began to think more about the standardization and development prospects of the factory. Compared with the survival requirements of their parents, the new generation of young people began to have more opinions and dignity.

Whether the pformation of the local government or the upgrading of China's manufacturing industry will be driven by such challenges.

The reporter tried to depict and explain the truth and false appearance of the shortage of migrant workers, and studied the data of the change of the population flow in some coastal areas and inland areas, and found the ten inflows in the past two years. It is found that with the development of regional economy, the tide of the people has gone from single to coastal areas, and has become many vortices in the vast territory.

As long as there is air and soil, a small spark can ignite a place. The story of Jiangsu, Suining and Dongfengcun is one example.

And once the entrepreneurial fire of farmers is lit, even a poor village can gather 3000 workers in just 5 years.

The bigger vortex is Chongqing.

From the "peasant city" to the shortage of migrant workers, the economic vitality of the city has become more and more active in the past ten years, and whether the institutional change will release further attraction is also worth observing.

When many enterprises shouted the shortage of migrant workers, Shenzhen became a synonym for sweatshops after the "Twelve Lian jump" incident.

What is even more interesting is that even though Foxconn in Shenzhen has already been unable to squeeze in, many young people are unwilling to return to Foxconn at their own door.

Shortage of migrant workers is only the Spring Festival shortage?

Who is in panic?

Internal migration can be solved

How do companies cope with rising salaries?

The Southern Weekend reporter has observed the shortage of migrant workers for many years, and found that behind this phenomenon is a big shuffle of the competitiveness of enterprises, and the upgrading made in China is brewing.

In the past ten years, the Chinese tide has shifted from one dimension to the coastal area, and has become many whirlpools of movement.

The blue curve in the picture is a map of population changes in the past ten years, with inflection points in 2005-2006 years.

The present Pearl River Delta refers to Guangdong Province, the Yangtze River Delta refers to three provinces and cities in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, and the three provinces and municipalities in Bohai, Tianjin and Hebei. All the data are calculated and restored according to the relevant figures in China's population and family planning Yearbook.

A country famed for its extremely surplus labor force, the shortage of migrant workers has become a hot topic after the Spring Festival.

Not only has there been a shortage of migrant workers in the traditional migrant workers, the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta, but also in the traditional export areas of migrant workers such as Sichuan, Chongqing, Henan, Hubei and Anhui.

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Is the shortage of migrant workers a real "shortage" or a "shortage"? Is it a partial phenomenon or a universal phenomenon? Behind it, what profound changes are taking place in China's economy?

Shortage of migrant workers is only the Spring Festival shortage?

Why does the shortage of migrant workers in the media seem to be getting worse? This is related to the time of observation.

By analyzing the data of population input and output in the past ten years, the Southern Weekend reporter found that from 2001 to now, China has twice shown signs of population inflow.

The first return of population to the mainland occurred between 2002 and 2003.

At that time, Henan, Sichuan, Chongqing, Hubei, Hunan and Anhui, the six traditional provinces (cities) with large population output, almost all of them grew after removing the natural growth population, which means that these places also attracted the outflow of population or other local population in the past two years.

At the same time, the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta and other developed areas, the external population began to decline significantly.

At this point, the phrase "shortage of migrant workers" has entered the vision of the Chinese people.

The second obvious return occurred in 2005-2006 years.

This year, Sichuan province has increased by 8 million people.

Since then, the trend of reflux has not changed, but the magnitude is not very large.

But why does the shortage of migrant workers in the media seem to be getting worse? Li Ping found that this is related to the time of observation.

Li Ping, an urban media journalist in Wuhan, has launched a series of reports on migrant workers after the media program.

He went to Yiwu in Zhejiang on the sixth day of the new year, and another colleague went to Dongguan, which is regarded as the two most typical input place of migrant workers in China, located in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta respectively.

At this point, some of the two cities have not yet opened the doors of recruitment, and some of the open recruitment and job seekers are few.

There were no people at the recruitment site, so the report of the shortage of migrant workers was born.

But two days later, beginning in eight, the number of people looking for jobs and recruitment gradually increased.

By the two day before the Lantern Festival before he left, the talent market was already full of people.

But at that time, Li Ping's media had ended the report of the shortage of migrant workers.

He reflected, "time is a big problem."

The migrant worker shortage at this particular time has also been noticed by He Xuefeng, director of the center for Rural Governance Research of Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

He recently wrote that the annual shortage of migrant workers is actually only a "shortage of Spring Festival". The shortage of migrant workers at this time is due to the fact that migrant workers can not accumulate labor in factories (i.e., the remuneration does not increase with the increase of working years, or even decrease with age). The cost of changing places for migrant workers is very low.

"When the migrant workers are still considering where to go to work, the factory can not wait to start production. At this time, the" shortage of migrant workers "is called the mountain sound. It seems that there are migrant workers everywhere.

Government departments are becoming more cautious about this.

In February 11th of this year, the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of human resources and Social Security announced that there were about 200 thousand workers in Shenzhen.

In February 25th, the head of the Publicity Department of the Bureau explained to the Southern Weekend reporter that it was just the situation at that time. After the Lantern Festival, this situation began to ease. New statistics are being made and will be announced to the media again in the near future.

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Some enterprises are not panic.

This day coincides with the latest issue of Foxconn's internal newspaper, and the front page title is: "cold spring, the labor shortage in the north and south of the river, the scenery is good, the crowd is raging Foxconn".

A week after the Lantern Festival, the Southern Weekend reporter investigated the enterprises in the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta region, and found that some workers who had been crying out for jobs had indeed recruited workers.

Dongguan Huajian group, the largest female footwear foundry in the world, has a total employment of 21000 people. In February 25th (twenty-three of the first lunar month), chairman Zhang Huarong told reporters that the old employees had returned 95%. "Before the Lantern Festival, they came back to less than 90%. At that time, we were really worried.

But now basically no problem. "

Zhang's tone was distinctly relaxed.

On the same day, Li Zhongguang, deputy general manager of the new Pearl ceramic group, told reporters that their employment problem has also been basically solved.

The industry is headquartered in Foshan and has factories in Jiangxi and Zhaoqing. Its total employment is over twenty thousand.

In the Yangtze River Delta, the same is true.

Hu Weidong, chairman of Jiangsu's furniture, told reporters that after less than a week after the Lantern Festival, they were all filled with three manufacturing bases in Jiangsu, Hebei and Foshan.

He also did not hear that businesses around him stopped working because they could not get workers.

The recruitment of Foxconn in Shenzhen is even more surprising.

Liu Kun, director of the media office of Foxconn group, said that the average daily recruitment of Foxconn in Shenzhen was about 4000, but the number of applicants was 8000-10000.

In February 24th, reporters at the South Gate of the recruitment point saw that the candidates were lined up in a square array, winding to see the end.

This day coincides with Foxconn's latest issue of "Foxconn people" in the internal newspaper. The front page title is: "spring cold, the north and south labor shortage, the scenery is good, the crowd is surging Foxconn".

Who is lying?

According to her observation, in recent two years, the number of small businesses recruiting less than 200 people has become less and less. These enterprises are small in scale, unable to get high wages, unable to recruit people, living more and more difficult, and some of them are directly bankrupt.

There are quite a lot of panic.

In the vicinity of Foxconn Lake recruitment center in Longhua, Shenzhen, an electronics enterprise from Guanlan has recruited a shed and recruited 3 employees to sit on the scene.

Compared to the hot atmosphere of Foxconn, it seems rather cold here, with only a few dozen people consulting.

Miss Lin, who is responsible for recruitment, said they were here to set up the stall, and the target was those who could not enter Foxconn.

The company also sent three cars to stop in the vicinity, specially sending the interested applicants to the company to understand the situation.

The electronics company is short of more than 1000 workers. It has been here for three days, and only more than 100 people have been recruited.

Some job seekers who have been in line for three days in Foxconn told reporters that they did not want to go to the enterprise because the salary was too low compared with Foxconn. After the salary adjustment Foxconn, the basic salary of the new employee is not less than 1550 yuan / month, the comprehensive income can reach 2100-2800 yuan / month. If the new employee is six months from the probation period, if the examination is qualified, the basic salary will not be less than 2000 yuan per month, the comprehensive income can even reach 2700-3600 yuan / month.

In this business, it can only get 1300-2000 yuan / month.

However, many job seekers who have worked for many years have told reporters that even if the small factory has a higher salary than Foxconn, he is willing to choose a large factory because "fame is large, relatively standardized, and the wages promised are generally available, and the small factory can not get much at last."

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In the local biggest talent market not far from Foxconn -- three and the talent market, migrant workers are also "scarce".

Three and Xu Qin, general manager of the talent market, said that during the Spring Festival last year, the number of job seekers dropped by nearly 20% compared with the same period last year. This year's Spring Festival is continuing, which has dropped by 15% compared with the same period last year, but the number of Companies entering the recruitment market is increasing.

According to her observation, these enterprises 80%-90% are in a state of labor shortage.

Those companies that are unable to recruit people are forced to increase their recruitment frequency. "Once or twice a week, now they have to come three or four times."

In order to attract more job seekers, the talent market as intermediaries also had to make adjustments.

Xu Qin said that before 2009, they mainly collected the money of job seekers; but after 2009, they fell down, and businesses needed to pay more money to enter the field. Job seekers only paid a nominal fee, for example, they used to be 10 yuan each time, and now they are 10 yuan a week.

During the Spring Festival this year, they even held 80 free recruitment activities - all those who entered the job hunt did not have to pay a cent.

In her view, the key to whether or not to recruit people still depends on the treatment, although the wages of these manufacturing enterprises have increased by nearly 20% this year compared with last year, which has already been higher than the minimum wage standard of 1100 yuan / month in Shenzhen, but it is still "bad" compared with Foxconn.

As a matter of fact, an important reason for the shortage of workers mentioned above is that their wages are basically higher than those in the industry.

According to Xu Qin, general manager of Shenzhen three and talent market, in recent two years, fewer and fewer enterprises have been recruited in the talent market, with a scale of less than 200 people.

The confusion of moving inland

"Young people are still going on a big bus."

Zhou Ying said that the work at home is attractive only to those who do not want to go out, most of whom are rural women aged forty or so.

Relocation of enterprises to the mainland can solve the problem of employment, not necessarily.

During the Spring Festival last year, this newspaper reported that the Baocheng group of Taiwan had a difficult job recruitment in Hubei. (see also the "shortage of migrant workers" in the working County, when the world's largest shoe companies are stationed in state-level poverty-stricken counties).

This year this situation has not changed.

According to the plan, the shoe factory invested by Baocheng group will be built in four phases. After the construction is completed, the total employment will reach 5 million people, which is equivalent to 1/4 of the total population of the mainland county.

In 2009, Bao Jia shoe factory, which had already completed the first stage project, was hired to the outside world.

Originally planned to recruit more than 16000 people, but in the end it recruited fewer than ten thousand people.

After the Spring Festival this year, the two phase of the project has also been completed.

According to Zhou Ying, director of Xinxian County human resources market, the recruitment demand is 28000. However, as of February 22nd (twenty in the first month of the lunar calendar), there were only odd jobs.

This working county is rich in labor resources. The population of the county is 983 thousand, and about 200000 of the migrant workers go to work every year. In order to ensure that the project is put into operation on schedule, the county has set up a special recruitment leading group. The county head is directly in charge of the task. The recruitment tasks are decomposed into groups and become one of the criteria for assessing cadres. If considering the local cost of consumption, the salary of Baocheng is not low. The monthly salary of the first month is 800-1000 yuan. In the Spring Festival of 2009, it has risen 200, and has not yet been recruited. This year it has increased by two hundred, but it still can not attract people.

"Young people are still going on a big bus."

Zhou Ying said that the work at home is attractive only to those who do not want to go out, most of whom are rural women aged forty or so.

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The same problem is not only encountered by Bao Cheng.

Even the famous Foxconn in the manufacturing industry has suffered similar puzzles.

According to Liu Kun, director of the media office of Foxconn group, Shenzhen Foxconn has been filled up a few days ago and has been recruiting some mainland factories since then.

But those who have arrived in Shenzhen are not willing to go.

Some people even say that Shenzhen is not allowed to enter.

"This generation of migrant workers is very different from that of the previous generation. The last generation is for survival, and this generation is for long knowledge."

Liu Kun analysis, "some of them recognize Shenzhen, just want to see, you open the factory to his door, he is not willing to stay."

Machine substitution

Not only in the footwear industry, but also in all labor-intensive industries, since 2009, there has been an obvious wave of machine changing.

A few years ago, Cai Fang, director of the Institute of population and labor economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, proposed that the "demographic dividend period" that China entered in the middle of 1960s will be concluded before and after 2015.

Despite the controversy over what year the inflection point is, there is an obvious consensus that China's cheap labor force is no longer an inexhaustible source of imagination.

Businesses are under pressure.

Zhang Huarong, President of Huajian group, even thought that it has arrived at a new node now. "It was difficult to recruit workers before, but after a period of time, it could be filled."

As a response, he invested 3 million euros in the second half of last year and imported a batch of automation equipment to replace labor.

He counted an account, and the investment would reduce labor by 15%.

The scale of the employment of Huajian 21000 people is around 3000 people. With the annual expenditure of 20 thousand yuan per person, it can save 60 million in one year, and the cost will be recovered in less than a year.

Moreover, with the improvement of automation, the defective rate of products will be greatly reduced.

"This will enhance our competitiveness in an invisible way."

Zhang Huarong said.

In his view, "before cheap labor force can be used, enterprises must use, and now the machine is more cost-effective, enterprises will naturally invest in machines."

Zhang noted that not only in the footwear industry, but also in all labor-intensive industries, since 2009, there has been a noticing wave of machine switching.

In China's town of wool textile, Dalang Town, Dongguan, at present, numerical control looms (a computer controlled programming machine for intelligent control of the entire weaving system, each loom can replace 8 artificial) production enterprises have reached 45, of which 1/3 only opened after 2009.

According to a data provided by the investment office of the town, in 2005, only 2000 of the CNC looms used by Dalang town knitted garment manufacturers increased to 4000 by 2008, reaching 6000 units in 2009.

"Shortage of migrant workers will definitely accelerate the process of mechanization in China."

Zhang Yonghong, a professor of sociology at Zhongshan University, analyzed that in 1950s, Japan's post war economic take-off also depended mainly on cheap, willing and disciplined workforce.

But in early 1960s, Japan took the initiative to give up this advantage and seek development strategy of high wages, high welfare and high labor productivity.

As a result, the utilization rate of robots in Japan is the highest in the world.

"In China, this process is just beginning."

He said.