“I lost two months’ worth of income last year because of Covid-led lockdowns,” said Zhao Da, a migrant worker from the central province of Hubei who was among those waiting to find work in Guangzhou’s Qiannan area. “So many of us want to start work early this year.”

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Factories around Qiannan supply the massive Zhongda market, the country’s largest clothing and fabric market. But as eager as they are to return to work, many would-be employees are finding it difficult as China’s overall job market recovery has dragged, owing largely to weak overseas demand.

“The pay offered is lower than last year, as employers say they are concerned about uncertainties in terms of new orders,” Zhao added. “It’s different from previous years when the roads were full of garment-workshop owners holding recruitment signs and waiting to be selected by workers.

“Many skilled workers could earn more than 600 yuan (US$89) a day at this time [last year].”

Yun Donglai, vice-minister of Human Resources and Social Security, was quoted by state media on Saturday as saying that around a fifth of migrant workers would return to work earlier this year.

Li Ge, a recruitment agent in Guangdong province, said factories were offering about 26-30 yuan an hour after last year’s Lunar New Year, but “now it has dropped to 22 or 24 yuan”.

Local governments in prosperous coastal regions have reportedly launched incentives to encourage major companies to resume production early, and authorities have also dispatched recruitment teams to inland provinces.

“We are planning to recruit 2,000 construction workers this year, the current view of the labour shortage is that it’s not big deal any more,” said Wang Rongshuo, founder of Guangzhou-based Yangshuo Green Construction, which installs solar panels.

“We have a lot of projects across the country. Workers will need to move throughout the year to different construction sites. Most of our workers are aged between their thirties and early forties. They can earn about 8,000 yuan a month.”

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But for many small- and medium-sized enterprises, especially in labour-intensive areas, the outlook is not so rosy.

“For now, I have no plans to hire more full-time workers for this year, as I am not so optimistic about a recovery of export orders,” said Xie Jun, a Zhejiang-based fabric and furniture exporting manufacturer.

After China formally dropped inbound quarantine requirements to reopen its borders in early January, Xie travelled to Frankfurt in Germany for Heimtextil 2023, one of the biggest international trade fairs for interior textiles, interior design and interior trends.

“I met some old friends [who are foreign buyers] there. But three years have passed – orders are not something you can’t just snatch back up, even if you want to,” he added. “They have looked for other suppliers outside of China for the past three years.

“It has changed a lot when dealing with overseas customers, in terms of payments, prices and negotiation methods.

“China is opening its gates again, but now we are facing a sluggish market with weak demand and heightened competition from overseas. It is so difficult to get buyers to switch back to Chinese suppliers.”

China had 295.6 million migrant workers in 2022, and the export sector created around 180 million jobs in 2020, accounting for more than a third of the nation’s 530 million non-farm jobs.

But despite the government stepping up efforts to resume production, such as by organising chartered trains or flights, the actual resumption of work is not progressing well, mainly because overseas demand is declining, said a shipping agent from Jiangsu province who gave only his surname as Xu.

The Labour and Social Security Bureau of Dongguan, a manufacturing hub in Guangdong, said that there were 176,500 vacancies in the city after the Lunar New Year, down from 250,000 to 300,000 last year, according to a report released earlier this month by the state-run news website Sfccn.com.

Due to the reduction in orders, some electronic companies in Dongguan have frozen recruitment for production-line labour, the report said.

The labour shortage will be more moderate than in previous years, said Peng Peng, executive chairman of the Guangdong Society of Reform, a Guangzhou-based think tank, who said it has traditionally been difficult to recruit workers in the first month after the holiday.

“After all, many companies have been hit hard in the past three years and have run out of money, so it’s not easy to regain their strength,” Peng said, adding that many firms are biding their time to see how much the global economy slows down, as this will have a powerful impact on China’s manufacturing sector.

Shen Wei, a producer and exporter of woollen and cashmere yarn in Zhejiang province, said most of the orders arrive in January or February.

“We haven’t been seeing difficulties in recruitment this year. Workers are coming back, and we will be fully staffed around February 5,” he said. “This year, business confidence is certainly higher than that of last year when there were fears about lockdowns. But export orders right now are neither optimistic nor pessimistic.

“The Chinese New Year came earlier this year, so in absolute terms, the orders that have arrived are fewer than in previous years, but clients have their own plans to place the orders, so what should come will eventually come. We expect more orders in the coming month.”

“In comparison, the situation for domestic demand is much more positive. Many peers in the industry focusing on the domestic market said their business was booming this year,” added Shen, who will travel to Hong Kong and France to meet old clients and attend trade shows this month.

“Though the international situation is not so good, we should still try our best to secure orders from overseas markets.”