China is facing a labor shortage and running out of cheap labor?!

People, people everywhere in China, and not enough to work

How can China be facing a labor shortage? In the big manufacturing hubs, employers are scrambling.

Good question. I'm wondering about that myself.

"As far as I know, this is not just a problem for Shanghai," Zhu said. "The entire coastal area of China is suffering from a lack of laborers."

The biggest complaints come from employers in the southern province of Guangdong, the manufacturing hub of China, where millions of workers were laid off in late 2008 because of a steep decline in exports caused by the global financial crisis. Now, employers are raising wages, storming job fairs and staking out train stations hoping to snare migrant workers.

Gee, that is a pretty quick recovery over there.

Meanwhile, minimum wages -- which are set locally and vary by province and municipality -- began rising in February. Crothall said he expected them to grow 10% this year.

Is this good news or bad news for the americans? And the world?

I'm still scratching my head over here. How does that happen? Well, if the story pans out, it could mean the world economy is indeed coming back to life.

I am happy for the Chinese citizens.

I have no idea whether they have really known wealth and abundance or not, but I hope this is it for them.

We are heading for new times, where we might find the populations that once suffered, coming out ahead against the once-considered "developed nations".

reply to post by Jazzyguy


When the people were laid off, they moved back to their villages, or else sought employment inland. All of these cities sit on the coastal areas of China (ports) .. if I was laid off I know I wouldn't huddle in a dark dank ally behind the factory.. I'd go back to my families farm.

Does seem to be a very quick turn around though.. but then again, the entire economy is out of whack. I suppose the only thing that surprises me is that China actually does have minimum wages lmao...

Well, they just created additional wealth almost half the GDP of Canada out of thin air. And they're spending power will increase even more if all this Yuan talk pushes through.

I know that companies here have started looking at other countries for cheap slave labor.

Vietnam and other asian countries will soon steal jobs from the Chinese.

The global companies will not accept 10% salary increases even if that only equates to 5-8$

The way this seems to be going, within 50 years, there will be nobody on Earth who is willing to do the grunt work. Then what?

reply to post by warpcrafter


There will always be poor people to use as slaves.

you have around 4 billion people living in poverty and corrupt governments around the world.

How can China be facing a labor shortage?

Because they are busy building places for OUR unemployed to come and live while we work off all that debt we owe them.

Have you seen this: Ordos, China: A Modern Ghost Town

I wonder who they are building all those unoccupied homes for? Maybe they are getting ready to welcome our unemployed, putting them to work for a dollar a day making them cheap ipods this time while we slave to pay back what we owe them, ha.



[edit on 28-3-2010 by Divinorumus]

Originally posted by Divinorumus

How can China be facing a labor shortage?

Because they are busy building places for OUR unemployed to come and live while we work off all that debt we owe them.

Have you seen this: Ordos, China: A Modern Ghost Town

I wonder who they are building all those unoccupied homes for? Maybe they are getting ready to welcome our unemployed, putting them to work for a dollar a day making them cheap ipods this time while we slave to pay back what we owe them, ha.

Don´t worry no one will pay back anything.

The chinese are infiltrated and it will be an out all war.

Originally posted by warpcrafter
The way this seems to be going, within 50 years, there will be nobody on Earth who is willing to do the grunt work. Then what?

It doesn't take 50 years for robots to become mainstream.

Originally posted by Hanko
The chinese are infiltrated and it will be an out all war.

Infiltrated? How? The chinese doesn't look exactly like europeans you know.

reply to post by Hanko


Oh, it will be paid alright. By the American people by hook or by crook. Pay it with your life through war or Argentina-style crisis.

reply to post by Jazzyguy


China is indeed facing serious labor shortage. For the past 20 years, this agrarian culture had quickly industrialized and many young people fled to cities in the hope of a better life.

But unfortunately, the wages were kept so low that they couldn’t survive, thanks to the greedy corporations working hand in hand with the corrupt Chinese Community Party (CCP).

Many of these factory workers would rather return to the fields, at least they know they would not starve living off the land. Thus the increasing wage levels to attract them back.

The CCP had long refused to re-value its Yuan, and is undervalued today. The corrupt CCP wanted it this way in order to boost its exports. If this is not PROTECTIONISM, supposedly HATED by Capitalists, I don’t know what else is.

And US had stupidly and foolishly OPENED its floodgates to import its cheap goods, losing wages and resources in the process. The deficits are massive. Thanks again to the greed filled corporations for doing this to the American people. If this isn’t TREASON, I don’t know what else is.

However, with increasing worldwide pressure, the CCP will have to revalue the Yuan, and when it gets stronger than the US dollar, American exports will benefit.

As for American imports, in truth, US can be a self sustaining country alone, for it has the most necessary resources incountry, even Alaskan oil fields, unlike China, where it needs most of the raw materials from around the world to produce goods.

When the Yuan rises, it will be able to buy its raw materials cheaper. And such savings can be added to the salaries of workers, and for tech research as well, IF the corporations and the CCP allow it.

If not, only they alone will benefit, as usual, but the shortage of workers will persist.

Thus the CCP must use such savings to increase the workers’ salary, and with the increases, the Chinese worker will be able to be more consumerist. They are only human and will want improvement in their lives.

With such needs, they will buy WESTERN goods, simply because they know the quality of their own local productions. In the 80s, when China reformed, a pair of local made jeans cost only US$5, and yet, the young saved their monies and rushed to buy US$50 Levis jeans.

It will be good news to US and the world’s entrepreneurs. So long as the workers there upgrade, produce quality goods (not cheap goods!), it will be in demand from the rising China consumers.

And with such wealth generated, US workers should rightfully get increased salaries, IF the corporations will share such wealth.

As for the China entrepreneurs, their well known inferior products will still be able to sustain them, for the China market is huge and not everyone can be rich. Until they give up on corruption, create a democracy for free flow of ideas to thrive, improve their tech, quality and reliability, will their own countrymen buy their own product.

But by that time, as long as the rest of the world continues to improve and build upon their own tech, they will always be ahead of China. Corrupt Communism is China’s weakness.

So it can be considered good news and the world gains it footing. China must give up its protectionist ways or the rest of the world will go with protectionism as a national policy.

I could foresee China importing overseas workers to meet Labor shortages and possible to address the country population imbalance . The imported workers could either form an underclass or become Chinese citizens based on racial qualifications being the sort of thing the Nazis use to practice . The only question in my mind is where the overseas workers would come from Tibet , Mongolia and Burma spring to mind .

Cheers xpert11 .

China’s land mass is huge and is fully capable of absorbing a couple more billion people from the world with no worries. Just based on agrarian culture, it would be enough to feed them all.

Their problem is production. It is still very much primitive and had not been as fast as the west to adopt technologies to improve their productivity, thus the need for intensive labor and an unwillingness to pay more for such lower scale work in the name of securing high profits.

Even with imported forced labour, their productivity will be worse, if these workers allowed themselves to survive only on bread and water daily.

It never ceases to amaze me how some people can think China or India is a wealthy nation just because they have a couple of trillion in their treasury.

To America and most European states with only hundreds million people, a trillion means a lot and could do much, but to China and India with population that are over a billion strong – it’s a nightmare.

Bill Gates may have obscene billions in his personal accounts, but he is a private individual and that money is his to selfishly spend with no obligations to anyone. However, for China, that couple of trillions in the treasure is for social spending – healthcare, education, infrastructure, etc.

Worse still is that social spending is a PROMISE to the common masses, for that’s what communism is all about. The masses work for the State without the lassie faire of Capitalism and the State is obligated to take care of ALL their needs.

One trillion dollars in the national treasury divided by one billion people means only $1,000 to distribute to EVERY citizen. Those thousand dollars are not going to be enough for social needs. The CCP is now on its knees and knows it.

They may seem to be on a buying spree – purchasing fix assets internationally and boosting their image, especially acquisition of Volvo to con their customers on a supposed equal safety image of their Geely cars. (A joke as the Geely car which is of coke can construction, can never measure up to the standards of quality and reliability of the European Volvo)

Such acquisitions are mainly hopes to gain better returns than sitting in the bank. Unfortunately, should a crisis occur, with the common masses in need of medical attention, many of them will be left to die as the CCP has no or little liquid cash.

China is NOT an oil rich populous state such as UAE or Dubai nor can they buy up foreign companies as they wish without a long hard thought on its return values.

The CCP cannot even afford to build roads to link up all its provinces, nor offer quality education to its huge masses. A hi-speed rail to a few cities is all they can afford. Their military and space program a sinking hole.

If Americans think citizens are living in poverty and upset about healthcare, think of the Chinese masses whom are in even worse shape.

The rich in China is getting either more richer or corruptly rich and the poor - made slaves. The hapless CCP is now stuck. They cannot afford to do a Putin to curtail the growing oligarchies of rich for fear of frightening investors, nor can they generate enough cash to live up to its communist pledges to the masses. Protests and strikes are getting more daily. The CCP leadership is sweating heaps.

They can go into a debt based economy, using borrowings to fund the economy like US and most Western states, but unfortunately, their debt instruments are high risk. Who dares trust a commie govt? There's no rule of law. Whatever the despot ruler says on that morning upon waking up is the only law. Wipe off debts one morning and all creditors will be in deep sh*t.

So there’s nothing to praise or be envious of China. The Chinese masses that realize the truth certainly don’t. Only those oligarchies and corrupt amongst them are hoping the gravy train will continue on. But time is unfortunately not on their side.

[edit on 30-3-2010 by SeekerofTruth101]