“During the financial crisis many people returned home and once home, they don’t want to come out again,” said Lu Kewang, a young migrant worker from Guizhou Province working at the Group Sense electronics factory in Dongguan’s Changan town.
While job centers are often teeming, workers are becoming more picky, preferring work at bigger factories and holding off for better pay, leading to creeping wage inflation in some parts.
Of the 20 million migrant workers out of work early this year, some 14 million or so across China had found work by June, the National Bureau of Statistics said.
While the report didn’t give a regional breakdown, it said 66.7 percent of migrant workers took jobs in eastern coastal areas, while 32.9 percent found work in central and western China, suggesting a significant number were now staying in the interior.
“Before, China was poor, so this region was very attractive,” said Liu Hong, head of the Longguan job market in Shenzhen’s Longgang district.
“Wages and benefits were many times higher than the inland but because of China’s economic development, the difference is getting less and less, so fewer people are coming out here,” he said.
The improved situation on the ground accords with recent purchasing managers’ index data suggesting orders are on the rise, but overall trade numbers remain weak suggesting the uptick isn’t yet across the board, with Chinese exports in August falling a steep 23.4 percent year-on-year.
“The orders have become smaller, less frequent and with a shorter period of delivery … the orders are not continuous like before,” said Hu Yifan, chief economist at Citic Securities.
“The recovery of exports will stabilize, but not be very strong going forward,” she said.
China’s export sector now makes up roughly a third of its GDP and exports are vital in providing long-term employment for China’s masses.
Meanwhile, many of the Delta’s masses of small factories are still scrambling from one order to the next. Instead large firms seem to be gleaning the lion’s share of business and mopping up most surplus labor.
For minnows like the Yuang Kang toy factory in Dongguan which makes stuffed dolls including podgy Santa Clauses and grinning snowmen, there’s not much to cheer about this Christmas.
“Things are just OK,” said Zhang Guopin, a sales manager for the firm. “We haven’t seen much improvement in our business.”
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