Shifting Moods in China's Migrant Labor Pool

(Caixin Online) For years, migrant workers in central and western China spent the closing hours of the annual Spring Festival holidays packing luggage and traveling to coastal cities for another year at factory and construction jobs.

This year, the pattern changed. Many migrants apparently chose not to travel east, and several coastal cities started reporting serious labor shortages even before the last fireworks of the Spring Festival died out.

The shortages actually began last summer, as the financial crisis eased and factories ramped up to fill new orders from overseas customers. It was a sharp turn of events for manufacturers, many of whom had sent migrants home when exports slowed earlier in the year. Not only did factories suffer a labor crunch, but the construction and service industries had trouble filling job slots as well.

The employer woes continued through the second half of 2009, affecting large and small enterprises alike. Cities with worker shortages ranged from Kunshan and Changshu in Jiangsu Province, to Hangzhou and Yiwu in Zhejiang Province. Farther south in the Pearl River Delta, employers in Dongguan and Shenzhen failed to fill their labor pools.

The deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Population and Labor Economics, Zhang Chewei, said he expects migrant workforce shortages to persist in China. And while factory managers groan, some labor experts are welcoming the trend.