Labour shortage threatening industrial growth
The shortage of migrant labour has started to eat into factory output and drive up production costs, particularly in cities in the southeastern coastal regions, the People's Bank of China warned yesterday.
Citing a recent study, the bank said there was a shortage of 2 million migrant workers in the Pearl River Delta, amounting to 10 per cent of the workforce.
Fujian province had a shortage of 200,000 workers by the end of last year, and in Changzhou , Jiangsu province , the number of vacancies was 2.7 times the number of jobseekers, according to the study.
It said the labour shortage had become a structural problem.
'There is a shortage of young female workers, as well as those with a certain skill level. The shortage is particularly serious for labour-intensive industries which offer low pay and poor working environments,' the bank said in its annual report on regional financial operations.
It noted that 78 per cent of the enterprises looking for employees in the second quarter of last year wanted female workers aged between 18 and 25.
In Jiangsu and Fujian , the number of women recruits sought by enterprises significantly outnumbered vacancies for male workers.
The report attributed the shortage to fast-growing demand as well as lower returns for workers, noting that the average monthly salaries for migrant workers had increased by only 68 yuan during the past decade.
