China's new generation picky about factory jobs

[Juche]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100313/ap_on_bi_ge/as_china_picky_workers



GUANGZHOU, China – Factory worker Chen Qinghai frowned as he looked at a tall bulletin board full of help-wanted notices from companies making everything from photocopiers and DVD drives to mobile phones and car parts.

The 19-year-old saw nothing that interested him.

"I wouldn't want to do any of these jobs," he said. "The pay is too low, and there's no chance of advancement. You'd just be stuck there."

Chen is part of the reason many factory bosses in southern China's Pearl River Delta — the nation's biggest manufacturing base — are complaining about a severe shortage of workers. Their anxiety runs particularly high at this time of year, because migrant workers have just spent a few weeks in their home provinces for the Lunar New Year and may not return to their jobs.

There are many reasons for the worker shortage in once-booming coastal regions like the Pearl River Delta. Farm-friendly policies are keeping many people on the land, while other migrants are finding jobs closer to home as poor interior provinces become more prosperous. Infrastructure projects funded by China's massive economic stimulus package have also attracted workers.

But another key reason is the changing labor force: More than half of China's working-age population is made up of laborers such as Chen, young people born in the 1980s and 1990s.

Their attitudes and expectations are vastly different from those of their parents, who hunkered down on assembly lines for little pay and helped turn China into a manufacturing juggernaut. Many younger workers won't do the sweatshop jobs their parents did. They grew up with greater prosperity in families limited by the one-child policy. They are more used to getting their way.

"It's true that we're less willing to eat bitterness," Chen said with a chuckle, using a popular Chinese phrase for enduring hardship. "We're better educated. We know we have rights. Times have changed."



For Chinese workers, a bigger paycheck might inspire them to shop more, which could be good news for Western companies trying to sell more to Chinese consumers.

For Chen, salaries are still too low.

"It's my understanding that our wages are the lowest in the world," he said. "Jobs are easy to find here, but good ones are rare."

American David Levy, who runs a factory making electric cables in Dongguan, has witnessed the generational shift in China's work force. He described the first waves of migrants, who planned to send most of their money home and eventually return to their village to build a house.

"Fifteen years ago, the expectation was: a place to work, a salary and then they didn't care much about anything else. Life was just going to suck for a couple of years," he said.

Photos of his factory workers from five years ago document the generational change. None show workers with the wild mop-top hairstyles that are popular now, he said.

"Their demeanor is also different," Levy added. "They can actually look the boss in the eye when they're talking. They don't cower when the boss comes around. They're becoming more and more like American workers. I like that."





Awesome.

[madrchsod]

1. welcome to unregulated capitalism with a hint of fascism

better start demanding workers rights,safe working conditions and good wages...

[Juche]

3. Standards of living are rising in China, and people are becoming more picky

http://www.chinaeconomicreview.com/today-in-china/2010_03_11/How_much_higher_can_factory_wages_go.html

"Migrant workers are a lot more fussy than before," said He Suwei, chairman of Hangzhou Weibang Airflow Spinning Co in Zhejiang province to the China Daily. "They don't just talk money; they talk about working environments, holidays and other fringe benefits we have not even heard of before. Workers have more say than us now because they have a wider choice."

Many factories are saying that they had to boost pay packets by 100 yuan or 200 yuan in order to lure people back, and that the average wage for a migrant worker is now close to 2,000 rmb a month ($293).

As Li Yining, the honorary president of the Guanghua School of Management at Beijing University puts it: “The labor shortage is a signal that the days of cheap labor are coming to an end. It forces companies to upgrade technologies or to move inland. In this sense, it is a good thing. Farmers in provinces like Hunan and Jiangxi can now plant trees and mushrooms and sell them. They may prefer to stay home than work in small factories in Guangdong.”

The bad news is that Chinese companies can only raise wages so far. Compare the Chinese wages of between 1,500 yuan and 2,000 yuan a month with the wages in Bangladesh, where workers in the garment industry typically get $36 to $50 a month. The Chinese wages are already almost six times as high.

Companies continue to manufacture in China because the country is reliable, predictable and has good infrastructure. But if costs rise further, they may be tempted to start switching out.








From my POV it is good for several reasons

1. Chinese people are standing up for their labor rights and standard of living more and more.

2. China is not as cheap as it used to be. And there is no new China to replace it. There is no politically stable nation with good infrastructure, a billion people with a labor surplus, lax labor/environmental laws and an educated, healthy workforce to replace China. Which means companies will have to start treating workers better, or playing by stronger environmental or labor laws. The power is shifting away from the capital class onto workers and governments, at least somewhat, as China stops being a one stop shop for everything.

[On the Road]

4. This Will Eventually Force Wages to Rise

Maybe sooner rather than later. That's the natural progression of the market.

Twenty years from now, China could be largely a developed country and Africa might be the new China.

[Juche]

6. Africa doesn't have the political stability of China

China has 1.3 billion people under 1 government, Africa has 1 billion under 50 governments. Not only that, but Africa lacks the infrastructure, health, education and political stability of China.

I do know that China is investing heavily in Africa. And like you said, their GDP is supposed to hit western standards (about 15k per capita) by 2030 or so.

But because of all the various government agencies, political instability, labor/environmental laws, currency exchanges, etc. that will be seen when companies switch from doing everything in China to splitting it among 50-100 smaller countries, I don't think corporations will have the level of power they did when they just had China as a one source stop for everything.

Either way, the concept of the race to the bottom may soon end. There is no surplus of healthy, educated, low wage, obedient labor in politically stable countries with good infrastructure, lax environmental and labor laws anymore. Every country has problems. Too small, labor problems, environmental laws, political instability, lack of infrastructure, health problems, etc. As a result, corporations have to adapt and power goes to countries and workers since there is no utopia of low wages, labor surpluses and good infrastructure that companies can all just move it.

As China (and transportation) gets more expensive, some companies that make products for the US are moving to Mexico. But Mexico doesn't have the amount of labor China has (their working age population is only 60 million), and will rapidly be saturated by capital causing wages to rise. Not only that, but they have a drug war right now. Some companies moved to Vietnam, but Vietnam has 1/15th the population of China.

Not only that, but people are aging. By the 2030s something like 20-30% of humanity will be geriatric. Subtract kids and that only leaves about 50% of the population able to work.

In the era after the black plague, a lot of power landowners had over peasants dissipated due to the labor shortage. Maybe something like that may happen over the next 30 years. Power may move away from capital.

[Andy823]

2. Well...

I know a country that "needs" factory jobs, and has a "high" rate of unemployment, maybe China would be willing to "outsource" their factory Jobs to say, oh I don't know, the U.S.A.! Now wouldn't that be ironic, we build the stuff an sell it back to China!

[imnKOgnito]

9. Ironically

With this country's race to the bottom attitude, some parts here would welcome sweatshops for a few generations.

[mediaman007]

5. Is there a world-wide congress of labor unions? If not, there should be!

The workers of the World should unite regarding working conditions.

[Moostache]

7. This has been going on for several years already...

The rising expectations of wages and work conditions by the Chinese is what led many corporate vampires to move factories to Vietnam and Cambodia and other SE Asian hell holes in search of additional workers to exploit. The corporate blood machine is already focused squarely on Africa as the "next-China"...and the beat goes on.

Its so sad that business leaders cannot see past their own lifetimes to realize they are building a legacy of utter failure. You cannot continue to forever pay nothing to the people who make the goods one wishes to sell or eventually you end up with no one to sell to - when too many people have lost the ability to pay for what you make, you have succeeded in creating a useless product and a broken business model. This is not news...Henry Ford knew this 80 years ago for god's sake!

[Juche]

8. I don't agree

China's economy grows at 8% a year, so it doubles every 9 years. So it is now about 10x bigger than it was in 1978, and will be 4x bigger still by 2030. Domestic consumption is starting to go up in China. They are even trying to implement an elderly pension and universal health care system because of the new wealth they have.

The concept of moving jobs to a nation, seeing their wealth and economy grow, then moving to another country when wages get too high isn't terrible. If done right, it can lift a lot of people out of poverty. However the concept of searching the earth for the easiest to abuse labor force is something else.

But since nobody offers all the benefits of China, corporations won't have the power they used to have.

[KitSileya]

10. Not to mention, the stability of the workforce will be lowered

when the large number of women just aren't there anymore. Because of the gender imbalance, China and India etc will soon experience increased instability and crime rates. Their workers will be men who don't have a family because they don't have anyone to marry. They'll be less likely to stay in jobs, and to put up with the traditional treatment - it's not like they'll have to "eat bitterness" to feed the kids. Oops.