China'S Manufacturing Industry Has Experienced "Labor Pains"

I wonder if you have noticed that we usually wear clothes, shoes, electronic products, toys for children, etc., regardless of whether the brand is domestic or foreign, there are quite a few producing areas in Guangdong, which once was the Pearl River Delta region where China opened to the outside world. The processing trade accounts for 40% of the whole country. However, our reporter recently interviewed in the Pearl River Delta region found that the days of some local manufacturing and manufacturing enterprises are becoming increasingly sad.

The manufacturing industry in the Pearl River Delta is facing a crisis of enterprise failure. It's time to work at ten a.m., but the big iron gate of the factory is tightly locked, and the scene of chaos is telling reporters that it seems to be empty.

"Master, I want to ask, is there anyone else here to work?"

No, the boss has been running for over a month.

"For more than a month, why do we close?"

"To make a debt."

"I used to make shoes."

"Yes."

About two meters away from the factory that closed, the reporter saw another factory with a locked gate. After hearing that, the factory was closed just over two months ago.

Reporter: "you moved here, didn't you?

Where did you move? "

Factory left behind staff: "now is not yet sure."

Reporter: "do you want to move out of town?"

Factory left behind staff: "yes."

The staff member told reporters that more and more factories have been closed or moved this year.

Factory left behind personnel: "many factories have moved to the inland provinces, many of which are very high, because the labor wages here are relatively high, and the labor wages in the mainland are low. They must move to the mainland."

Reporter: "is it harder to make money now?"

Factory left behind staff: "sure, we haven't got any pay in more than 10 years."

Nowadays, such a scenario is not uncommon in the Pearl River Delta region where processing and manufacturing are concentrated.

Li Peng, Secretary General of the Asia Footwear Association, said: "there are about five thousand or six thousand shoe factories in Guangdong. There are more than 1000 like those in Guangdong."

Reporter: "do you mean shoes?"

Li Peng: "yes, this year this number still sounds horrible, for example, in Huidong, it has more than 3000 shoe factories, and in two or three months, the small and medium-sized factories closed four hundred or five hundred."

Reporter has learned that the Pearl River Delta region has encountered difficulties not only in shoemaking enterprises, but also in other labor-intensive industries such as clothing manufacturing, toy processing, electronic processing and so on. Many enterprises have begun to move out and some have gone bankrupt. The Pearl River Delta manufacturing industry, which has been brilliant for a while, is now facing a crisis. What changes has taken place in the Pearl River Delta, once known as the world's manufacturing center?

Why do so many companies leave or close down?

In a relatively concentrated area of the garment factory, the reporter noticed that a wall was full of recruitment inspiration.

Reporter: "Hello, I want to ask, I see there are a lot of recruitment, it is recruitment all year round, right?"

Factory security: "yes."

Reporter: "is it because recruitment is very stressful?"

Factory security: "recruitment must be very intense. Now, how can we say that this price is so high and the price is low, so it is difficult to recruit workers."

In fact, in the areas where the manufacturing enterprises are concentrated in the Pearl River Delta region, almost every factory has its annual recruitment inspiration.

Reporter: "are there fewer and fewer people working in the mainland now?"

Factory doorman: "yes, some of them have gone to Zhejiang."

Reporter: "do you mean working people?"

Factory gate guard: "some of them have gone to other places, but they are not here. The price is low here."

Reporter: "how much is it like an ordinary worker here for a month?"

Factory gatekeeper: "there are more than one thousand yuan of technology, no technology seven or eight hundred yuan."

In 2002, the minimum wage in Dongguan was 450 yuan. Now it is 690 yuan, and now it is 690 yuan. It has increased by more than 50% in five years. In fact, the wages of workers in the Pearl River Delta have been far higher than this figure. The difference is between 1000 yuan and 1500 yuan. But even so, the recruitment of workers is still difficult. Obviously, cheap labor is no longer easy to find in the Pearl River Delta. For enterprises, besides the shortage of workers, the pressure also comes from rising raw material prices, water and electricity charges, factory rent and so on.

Xie Xiuqing, Humen Mei Xin garment factory: "especially during this time, everything is, especially those prices, which have gone up very much. Those (clothes, oil) oil and so on have all gone up very hard. It turned out to be about 60 yuan, and now it costs 75 yuan (a barrel), almost 78 yuan (a barrel), and now it is rising very strong."

The head of a garment factory told reporters that the raw material copper of copper buckles has surged from 20 thousand yuan per ton ton in early 2004 to 60 thousand yuan a ton now, which has increased more than 3 times. Although the cost of the factory has increased a lot, the price of the product has not increased at the same time.

Xie Xiuqing: "anyway, the processing fee is really too low now, and many of them are unable to sustain it because of this, especially this year.

Is it the only way out for the Pearl River Delta manufacturing industry to leave business?

In the Chinese economic landscape, the Pearl River Delta has been leading the way for many years. However, after many years of rapid growth, the manufacturing sector has suffered from labor shortage, electricity shortage and oil shortage in recent years. The price of land, labor and energy has risen sharply. In the international market, with the appreciation of the RMB and the implementation of trade protection in some countries, the market competitiveness of these enterprises in the Pearl River Delta has been severely challenged, and some enterprises have to leave their entrepreneurial places and travel far away.

Ganzhou is known as the southern gate of Jiangxi province. It is close to Guangdong. The Guangdong Jiangxi expressway is closer to the Pearl River Delta. This unique location advantage has attracted a lot of attention from Guangdong enterprises.

Feng Yu, director of the Investment Promotion Bureau of Jiangxi Ganzhou economic and Technological Development Zone, said: "in the past few years, investment promotion work must be more active. We are looking for businessmen. Now we feel that we are attracting more investment. Many times we sit at home, there are many customers, and some of Taiwan's Hongkong, including Guangdong, have moved to find us."

The main road of Ganzhou economic and Technological Development Zone is directly connected to the Guangdong Jiangxi expressway. On both sides of this main road, factories that are under construction can be seen everywhere.

Feng Yu: "we have more than 200 enterprises in the whole park, so there are more than 120 enterprises in more than 200 enterprises pferred from the coastal gradient."

Reporter: "what kind of enterprises are they?"

Feng Yu: "the industry is mainly modern textile, electronic and electrical appliances, these are more, especially some labor-intensive enterprises, because our local human resources advantages, or more obvious."

Zhang Huarong, the first Guangdong businessman to eat crabs in Ganzhou, 5 years ago when Ganzhou's economic development zone was still a barren hill, Zhang Huarong came here from Guangdong Dongguan and built his shoe production line.

Zhang Huarong, chairman of Guangdong Huajian group, "at that time, everyone has been developing in Guangdong. At that time, I thought that five years and ten years would pfer to the mainland."

In Zhang Huarong's view, shoe industry is a typical labor-intensive enterprise. With the increase of labor costs in coastal areas, it is bound to shift to cheaper labor areas.

Ganzhou, Huajian international shoe city Co., Ltd. deputy general manager Tu fire Bao: "for example, in Ganzhou, our labor costs, we are cheaper than Dongguan per capita monthly wages to about 300 yuan, per capita monthly wages, our water and electricity costs, like Ganzhou hydropower cost per kilowatt hour is only 0.68 yuan, in Dongguan is nearly one yuan, nine corners more, our water cost, we are nine Jiao, that Dongguan is one yuan five jiao."

After two years of moving north to Jiangxi, Zhang Huarong once again extended his tentacles to Guangdong and built two shoe making lines in Vietnam, where labor force is cheaper.

Zhang Huarong: "the labor cost in Vietnam is about 3/5 of the labor cost in our country, and the whole cost is about 25% to 30%."

In fact, like the Huajian shoe industry, the enterprises that choose inland provinces or South-East Asian countries are now increasing in the Pearl River Delta. According to the statistics of the footwear association of Asia, about 25% of the footwear enterprises in Guangdong now have factories in Southeast Asia, such as Vietnam, India, Burma and so on. About 50% of them are located in China's inland provinces, such as Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangxi and Henan. Only about 25% of the enterprises are still on the sidelines.

Lin Shu, Dean of the school of economics, Liaoning University, said: "in other words, it is a cascade pfer, so that the United States initially pferred to Japan, and then Japan began to pfer to the four dragons. After the pfer of the four dragons, it pferred to some other countries such as China and Russia. When the labor force problem appeared in the Pearl River Delta, after the labor cost increased, he began to pfer in other areas like the rest of the country, and at the same time, foreign businessmen were pferring to other parts of the country. This is a common trend and is also in line with the economic laws."

In fact, these shoemaking enterprises go south to the north, which is a microcosm of the big migration of the manufacturing enterprises in the Pearl River Delta. However, the living environment that the enterprises need is not just labor and land, but is it the only way out for these enterprises that are increasingly dependent on specialized division of labor? Does the pfer ensure that they will be brought back to life from the crisis?

The huahuajian shoe industry has two production lines in Vietnam, accounting for 1/10 of the company's total capacity. Although the labor force here is cheaper, Zhang Huarong did not plan to further expand Vietnam's production line. He wanted to continue to wait and see.

Zhang Huarong: "Vietnam has an advantage over labor cost in terms of labor resources, but Vietnam also has many things that are not as good as ours, and they are more important than those of China.

Zhang Huarong told reporters that their raw materials and accessories needed for shoemaking in Vietnam factories had to be shipped from Dongguan, which made them feel very inconvenient.

Li Peng: "we started last year, we went to India, Bangladesh, this year, Vietnam, Burma, Kampuchea, we have all been there, but now it seems that the labor cost of those countries seems to be relatively low, but it is faced with a set of industrial chains, and a skilled worker. The management of skilled workers is a very big problem. What kind of spare part is it looking for? It is very inconvenient to send from Dongguan express, and its R & D is almost zero."

For the Guangdong enterprises that migrate inland, they often encounter problems such as inadequate local industry support and increasing pportation and logistics costs.

Li Peng: "in fact, where to go, in fact, many shoe factories are now at a loss, because there are many failures to go abroad, and many of them are unsuccessful examples in the mainland."

The only hope of the Pearl River Delta is to achieve industrial pformation and upgrading. It seems that for the enterprises that are facing pressure of cost, pfer is not a universal remedy to cure all diseases. In addition to careful calculation of cost, enterprises will not be able to move, but also consider variables such as industrial support, local industrial policies, local customs and so on.

But no matter where these enterprises will eventually go, there is only one option left to the Pearl River Delta region. That is to realize industrial pformation and upgrading. This is the only hope of the Pearl River Delta.

Although a large number of enterprises have begun to move out, Chen Zhongqiu, mayor of Houjie Town in Dongguan, does not seem to be worried.

Reporter: "if more companies turn around, I don't know if you have such worries."

Chen Zhongqiu, mayor of Houjie Town, Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, "no".

Chen Zhongqiu told reporters that the current pfer is only a low value-added manufacturing process, and the core technology R & D and procurement trade remains in Dongguan. For this reason, the output of Dongguan shoes accounts for about 1/4 of the country's total, accounting for about 1/10 of the world's total, and the number of shoe buyers in Houjie has exceeded 1000.

Charles, President of Lewei company, the world's largest woman shoe trader in the United States, came to Guangdong in 1983 Charles.

President of Liwei shoe company, USA