China's Pearl River manufacturing hub 'lacks workers'

[pampango]

Source: BBC

China is facing a shortage of workers in the Pearl River Delta manufacturing hub in southern China. Some estimates suggest factories need two million more migrant workers from other parts of China. Expectations of higher wages and better working conditions from new workers are being blamed for the labour shortage.

Factories in southern China started reporting that it was hard to find enough workers last August, as orders picked up after the financial crisis. Low pay is a major factor. The companies that find it hardest to recruit, and then retain workers, are those involved in low value, labour intensive manufacturing.

Migrant workers used to travel from all over China for those jobs. But last year many of them found work that paid similar salaries closer to home, working on the infrastructure projects funded by the country's economic stimulus package. They are still building the roads, airports and railways the government has funded.

Beijing's own research suggests that each new generation of workers is better educated, and has higher expectations in terms of salary, labour conditions and rights than those that came before them. They are more choosy about what kind of factory they want to work in. Some experts point out though that if companies are faced with a shortage of workers, that could force them to invest in new technology. In that way the shortages may actually help to speed up the transformation of the economy here into one that is less labour intensive, delivering higher value.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8527621.stm

[Demeter]

1. How Are You Gonna Keep Them Chained in the Sweatshops

once they've seen Par-ee?

Maybe the poisonous air, water and land there has something to do with it, as well.

[Lasher]

2. Party's over, time to outsource.

There should be some cheaper labor available somewhere in Africa.

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. Or anywhere in the US or the UK, before long.... never mind somewhere.

But a witty rejoinder. Quick off the mark.

[SkyDaddy7]

4. Cheap labor in the world is a finite resource!

Eventually countries/corps will have used it all up...And then what?

...Of course this could take decades if not centuries to run its course.

[bulloney]

7. Technically, cheap labor is finite, but we'll never see the corporations use it up in our lifetime.

A University of Missouri rural sociologist I kept contact with said 15-20 years ago that Mexico was a temporary stop for corporations seeking cheap labor. After that, he said it would be India, China and the Pacific Rim. Then, there's all of Africa.

It'll take several generations before they deplete the labor from these continents. By then, who knows what kind of world we'll have? It could be a global feudalistic society unless some grass roots uprisings takes place.

[SkyDaddy7]

8. Eventually the corps will have no one to sell to!

This will happen long before the cheap labor dries up IMHO. Then what?

[Mopar151]

5. I'm not sure where I heard it

That Chinese workers in manufacturers have an average working life of ~ 7 years? Repetitive motion injuries, orthopaedic problems with knees, backs, and the ol' rotator cuff, chemical poisioning.... And in their current system, many work away from home, which is very stressful over the long term.
And word gets around, about abusive bosses, short wages, and workplaces that make 'em sick.

[madrchsod]

6. china`s is the late 1800-1930 united states....

n no osha and epa standards and let`s not forget- no workers rights!

[heli]

9. It's not a place to live, or visit

[Lasher]

10. China's economic stimulus is generating jobs right now through public works.

Ours was used to bail out bankers.

[Doremus]

11. Ours was used to bail out bankers ----- nope.

The stimulus was not the bank bailout and vice versa.

The bailout occurred during the chimp's reign.

[Uncle Joe]

12. This will ultimately

create more inflationary pressure here, so we had better convert to Green Technologies quickly.

Thanks for the thread, pampango.

[pampango]

13. Not so "ultimately" perhaps. The global recession has masked it for the time being.

China's growth and its resulting demand for resources (oil, coal, many others) has raised the prices of many of these resources or kept those prices from falling as far and as fast as they would have if there were no Chinese demand in the developed world's recession.

That's good if your an exporter of these resources, at least for now. But the inflationary pressures it causes in the US and the rest of the developed world, which has a great demand for these same resources, will be felt in the years to come. More demand for the same barrel of oil or ton of coal or copper means higher prices ahead.

You're right, we need to push green technologies as fast as possible, but I don't think they get here in sufficient quantities in time to avoid much of this future inflationary pressure.

[Uncle Joe]

14. The way I understand Chinese monetary policy, they haven't allowed

their currency to appreciate against the dollar, in spite of their growth, our running deficits and massive debt to them.

That's where I see the dynamics in your O.P. increasingly putting pressure, aside from what you've just posted, should their policy change and the dollar be devalued, I believe this could/would have an overnight effect.