Unemployment and Migrant Workers in China

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Unemployment and Migrant Workers in China
2
Unemployment

• º Chinas economy has quadrupled in size in two
  decades
• China is becoming the global centre of
  manufacturing creating a prosperous elite
• However there are many people in China at rock
  bottom

3
Unemployed

• There are not enough jobs in China for the 10
  million workers a year entering the urban
  employment market
• As well as the 14 million laid off from
  state-owned enterprises, the 95 million migrant
  workers seeking work and an estimated 150 million
  surplus labourers in the countryside

4
Unemployed

• These staggering figures are getting worse as
  China joined the WTO in 2001 and must lower its
  trade barriers
• This means foreign competition for its already
  vulnerable industries e.g coal and car
  manufacturing which could lead to further
  unemployment

• Also farmers who cannot cope with mechanised
  businesses in the USA are forced to head for the
  cities
• Here they meet up with laid off state workers,
  the total number of unemployed migrants is larger
  than the US workforce

5
Migrant workers

• Chinas booming economy has created a demand for
  cheap labour
• This has created the floating population of
  China estimated to be at least 100 million people

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Hukou

• farmers are attracted to the cities like Beijing
  and Shanghai to improve their incomes and living
  conditions
• However these migrant workers are not treated
  well in the cities because of the hukou
• The hukou is a system of permits which permits
  every citizen to a home district, outside of this
  they have few rights
• However rural poverty has led millions to move to
  the cities and Sezs without permission

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Hukou

• Most rural Chinese say they will never be able to
  earn a living on the small plots of land and need
  to be freed from the countryside to the cities

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Hukou

• Although the hukou system is to be scrapped due
  to restricting labour mobility and replaced with
  a national security system, workers at present
  are still facing inequalities

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Inequalities

• The average annual income in Shaghai is around
  3,000 pounds, including the middle class
• A migrant worker will be lucky to earn 1/5 of
  this, although in the countryside their average
  is 60p a day
• House prices in Shanghai are soaring, houses are
  built quickly due to shortages e.g 88 storey
  buildings, migrant workers cannot afford the high
  rents

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Inequalities

• Therefore migrant workers often end up in the
  lowest paid jobs with poor conditions as without
  rights they have no real option
• This had led to a growing underclass in China

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Case study

• Li Xiaobo works 10 hours a day in a marble
  processing factory, with no days off he also has
  a Part time job
• He shares a 10 square metre room with 3
  co-workers
• He faces discrimination from getting a mortgage
  to finding a girlfriend

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Recent developments

• However for the
• first time in
• a decade, factory
• owners in the
• southern province of
• Guangdong are
• finding themselves
• with a labour
• shortage of up to two
• million workers

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Recent developments

• New opportunities closer to home are
• deterring many from venturing south to the
• factories on the border with Hong Kong.
• But for some, it is the health hazards that
• come with working in China's sweat shops
• that are keeping them away.
• e.g. health hazards working in battery
• factories
• BBC news

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Overall

• However there are thousands of entrepreneurs all
  over China setting up factories and churning out
  goods
• They all have one thing in common, the workers
  are mainly migrants from the countryside
• There are 900 million poor farmers in Chinas
  countryside waiting to up sticks and move to a
  factory