Companies struggle to find, keep workers

A labor shortage is sweeping through both the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta regions, the country's two major economic powerhouses.

LTN Classic, a garment firm in Guangzhou, is looking for more than a dozen sewing workers, but hired only half as many as it needed, as the capital city of South China's Guangdong province expects a shortage of 110,000 workers right after the Lunar New Year holiday.

"We can fill our administrative posts but can hardly get all the general workers we want," design director Zhang Wei said at the company's stand at Guangzhou's first post-holiday job fair, which opened on Wednesday.

General worker hiring has been difficult over the past few years as job opportunities become available in other parts of the country, Zhang said.

His company has been able to meet half of its demands for such workers, leaving part of its capacity idle, which pushes up costs.

Such workers, who earn 4,000 yuan ($640) to 5,000 yuan a month, have come to the company with newly hired production managers or through friends, Zhang said.

Shanghai faces similar problems finding workers to fill lower-paid positions, as workers' demands have been higher than expected.

Li Huaying, the owner of the Shanghai Litan job agency, has noticed the trend. Li's company holds annual job fairs at the Shanghai Railway Station to recruit migrant workers after the Spring Festival holiday.

"We've got about 2,000 vacancies available at the moment, but few contracts were signed in the past week as some of the migrant workers haven't returned from their hometowns, and some demanded higher-income jobs," Li said.

A majority of the listed vacancies in Li's company offer jobs with a monthly salary of over 2,000 yuan, while most of the applicants require a minimum income of 3,000 yuan.

"It has been difficult for a company to hire an ordinary worker without any specific skills with a monthly salary of 2,000 yuan, a salary that was unacceptable for migrant workers in Shanghai," Li said.

Li added that migrant workers now pay more attention to working conditions, social welfare and leisure time.

Her agency will start this year's fair on Monday because the peak period for job searches will be after Sunday, when the majority of migrant workers will return from their Spring Festival breaks.

Even as more than 90 percent of workers in enterprises are expected to return to their posts in Guangzhou in the two months after the Chinese New Year holiday, Guangzhou will still face a shortage of 110,000 workers, according to the city's human resources and social security bureau.

A survey of 326 enterprises involving 219,300 migrant workers found that more than 80 percent of the enterprises expressed an urgent hiring demand, mainly for general workers.

Enterprises are offering 9 percent to 12.5 percent pay rises to newly hired workers, the survey found.

"Our company normally raises the workers' monthly incomes by 10 to 20 percent annually even during the tough periods like the previous year," said Shen Jiandong, a senior sales manager for Jiangsu Goldsun Textile Science and Technology Co Ltd.

But despite the rising salaries, only about half of his workforce had returned by Tuesday.

Shen added that human resources staff have posted notices in websites and job agencies in Nanjing since last week to recruit enough workers and resume production by the end of February.

The demand for workers in Guangdong, a manufacturing hub in the country, grew by 15.2 percent year-on-year at the end of last year, and the demand will continue to rise in the short term with the expanding economy, according to the provincial human resources and social security department.

The peak shortage in the province is estimated at 1 million to 1.2 million workers.

The authorities in Guangdong are increasing minimum wages by 19.1 percent on average from May 1.

Minimum wages in Guangzhou will increase by 19.2 percent to 1,550 yuan a month and 15 yuan per hour.

Guangzhou will hold 100 job fairs, offering 300,000 jobs from 10,000 enterprises after the Spring Festival holidays till April, said Zhang Baoying, director of the Service Center of Guangzhou Human Resources Market.

Enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta region, they hope to more new workers and trying to prevent those in the current workforce from changing jobs.

"The labor shortage seems to be easing compared to the last two years. Some local enterprises shut down because of the weak economy, making more workers available for recruitment," said Yang Xiaolong, chairman of Zhejiang Gete Clothes Co Ltd in Wenzhou of East China's Zhejiang province.

About 200 previous workers in Gete have come back from their hometowns, and Yang has had to call up those unreturned management employees every day to ensure they will be back soon.

"I only can manage to guarantee that the majority of the senior workers will stay in positions with a steadily increasing salary," Yang said. The basic salary for a worker in his company is 2,500 yuan.