As the global financial crisis squeezes once-thriving Chinese manufacturing regions, the fate of people like Xue Fengqiao looks to figure ever higher on the Chinese leadership’s agenda.
Xue, 24, and his fiancee migrated from poor Shanxi Province to coastal Fujian 14 months ago, dreaming of amassing a nest egg by working factory jobs.
But both were laid off last month, joining the swelling ranks of Chinese workers cut adrift by the crisis, and who now pose a looming stability problem for China’s leaders.
“We really don’t know what to do. We can’t go home but there are fewer jobs here and they don’t pay enough,” said Xue, sitting dejectedly in a government jobs center crowded with anxious unemployed workers.
Xue was let go by a machinery factory in this industrial town as foreign orders dried up.
“It’s even worse in other places. Everyone we know is desperate,” he said.
The Chinese Communist Party already grapples with thousands of violent public outbursts each year by marginalised people in society.
And experts warn the problem could spike as more of China’s estimated 200 million rural migrant workers lose their jobs.
Layoffs had already been growing as Chinese manufacturers retooled in recent years for higher-value products, said Constance Thomas, the International Labor Organization’s China director.
But the ILO expects “at least several million” new jobless due to the global crisis.
“That has to be any leader’s greatest fear — to have a large percentage of their population unemployed, without income, without security. Clearly, measures have to be taken to ensure that doesn’t happen,” Thomas said.
An estimated 30 million workers lost jobs from 1996 to 2004 as the government restructured state-owned companies, causing widespread protests and contributing to the masses of migrant workers today.
This time, authorities have even less control over the process, said Willy Lam, a veteran China-watcher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“Last time, the government could slow down layoffs if needed. But now global forces are at work. The leadership is very worried,” he said.
The government this month announced a US$586 billion package to counter the export pain with infrastructure and other projects that will create jobs.
The trouble has been most acute in southern Guangdong Province, China’s manufacturing heartland, where one-fifth of factories in major cities are expected to close by January alone, according to industry estimates.
Thousands of workers have gathered outside shuttered factories there, demanding unpaid wages, forcing local authorities to intervene.
But the pain is now spreading up the coast to places such as Tongan.
Gao Fengxiang, 42, came from Hunan Province in February to a factory job here.
Three weeks ago he was laid off and his employer and government officials have denied him required unemployment and medical insurance, he said.
“We have been cheated. They lied to us,” Gao said, his voice rising in the Tongan labor office as fellow migrants murmured in agreement.
The shabby office is packed with jobless workers checking job advertisements offering 1,200 yuan to 2,500 yuan (about US$175 to US$370) — about 50 percent less than earlier this year, Gao said.
“None of the jobs pay enough. We’re abandoned,” he said.
The ILO’s Thomas said China was ramping up re-training programs and addressing holes in the social safety net. She expects big infrastructure projects to absorb many workers soon.
But far more is needed, given the problem’s scale, she said.
Meanwhile, many workers are giving up and heading home, according to statistics showing increased rail traffic from manufacturing regions.
Lam called that “disturbing.”
“This hasn’t happened before. After they return to Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei or wherever, they are unlikely to find work there. So we may see more rural disturbances,” he said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six