The Labor Market Of China

• The enormous surplus of labor in China imperils workers worldwide as international competition puts incessant downward pressure on wages and working conditions, leading the apparel and textile industries to favor the cheapest and most Draconian producers.

Since the market orientated economic reforms were introduced in 1978 (Khan, Hu (1997, P103) China’s economy has seen a 10% increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Per year (Vincellete, Manoel,

One of the hallmarks of china’s socialist economy made a statement promise of employment to all and job-security with virtually lifelong tenure.They were overstaffed to fulfilling socialist goals and job-security lower the workers ‘motivation to work.This socialist policy was called the iron rice bowl.China’s employed labor force is rarely over 800

Presently, foreigners gain massively from the resource of migrant workers in China. The locals that can benefit from their presence benefit very, very little, that is, if a small amount of money for their work is seen as a benefit. The Chinese employees' work is valuable to the company, for their

China is facing difficulties both inside and outside. Since China cannot regain its advantages, the only choice is transiting away from low-end manufacturing. The days of cheap, endless labor is limited, but has not ended. China still has time to invest in research, design and development and train skilled workers to create China’s own high-tech products and brands. If China could relax the One-Child Policy and invest more on children’s education, Chinese manufacturers could have more skilled workers to innovate and produce their high-tech products. China’s manufacturing is at a

From my beginnings in rural China to my upbringings inside a Chinese sweatshop, labor reform and economic development was destined to not only be a scholastic interest, but also my personal passion and life-long devotion. Walking over the hill of rice paddies tended by the drenching sweat of young children and elderly, I could see the injustice of a city that was rising before me. High rise construction sites were now housed on sacred burial land; local officials now forsook their Maoist ideals of rectitude in exchange for some ill-gotten pocket money; the sunken eyes of exploited migrant workers now widened with unspeakable injustice and inequity; the hands of eager foreign businessmen were now riddled with unimaginable profits at the expense of the innocent blood and tears of my countrymen.

For instance, China has a large labor force with much lower cost of living for the employees compared to the US. China’s workforce is about 98 million employees while the U.S. has only about 17 million workers in the manufacturing field. But the average hourly compensation cost of

This migration is still happening today in China. Chinese are moving from agricultural to urban areas for the same reasons americans and europeans have been doing since the 17th century.

Based on the population issue, the Chinese government enforced the birth control policy from the late twentieth century until now, so the total fertility rate of China is lower than the total fertility rate of the U.S. In the labor market, China plays an important role of the labor export. Large population emerges more workers, so the labors are cheaper in China. After the cold war in the 1990s, the global economic cooperation made the connection between countries was more close and complex. Many international companies invent and possess their core technologies in the U.S or other developed countries, but they found their manufacturing factories in China. They already aimed at the Chinese large cheap labor market could reduce the cost in their entire business. Consequently, people can find different kind of stuff labeled as “made in China” easily and frequently—it is a good explanation for the fact of half of my clothes were “made in China”. Many small factories which produce clothes and accessories are located in small towns in southeast of China, especially Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong Provinces. Most of workers in those factories are wide range-age women who from rural areas with lower level education. Their working conditions are depended on the conditions of the factories.

According to the case we know that labor costs in china may have a big increase in the next 10 years, from 40% totally to 10% annual increase to even 40% annual increase.

Li Qiang, a labor rights activist and the founder of China Labor Watch, states that “they [contractors] are encouraging the exploitation of Chinese laborers by hiring factories based on the lowest price and the fastest production” (Chu and Yun). But what happens as a result, according to an academic journal coauthored by Dara O’Rourke, Ph.D., and industrial hygienist Garrett D. Brown, is that the country becomes a magnet for socially inadequate organizations due to lax enforcement of regulations and the suppression of labor rights activists. Furthermore, the easy accessibility of cheap labor indicates a “troubling model for countries seeking to attract foreign investment and develop domestic enterprise” (O’Rourke and

China is one of our biggest labor competitors. The reason many US companies go to China for outsourcing is again, because of their workforce’s willingness to operate at low costs. Michael Zimmerman describes this as a disparity in worker “tolerance”. Where the low wages found in China are “far lower than U.S.

Labor is one of the largest and in certain sectors the most expensive component in the production of goods. Outsourcing acknowledges the labor cost to produce a particular product is cheaper if the manufacturer were to produce the same product in-house where the cost per unit is significantly higher. Stable labor costs are important for long-term revenue projections to be relied upon by managers because they are a precursor of where a company is trending financially. It is this efficiency-in-scale that confirms the benefit of the division of labor memorialized by Adam Smith. As a result of the wage disparity between the costs of American workers versus Chinese workers, hundreds of U.S. based firms relocated all or part of their operations to China, taking advantage of the inexpensive labor market and the many cost-saving incentives offered by the Chinese government.

Although this sometimes isn’t the factories fault because most of the workers are uninsured so they are denied medical and social services (“China: Beijing’s Migrant 1”). Most of the factories do try to pay their workers by hour at about twenty cents per hour, but some only pay them once a year (Goldman 1). This however is breaking the rule of Labor Law fifty in China, which states that workers must be paid on a monthly basis. The average wage per month is only about sixty-five dollars which isn’t a sufficient amount of money to support an average family (“China: Beijing’s Migrant 1”). These people try to work overtime to earn more money, but often times they are forced to do this regardless (Goldman 2). Chinese workers often work in fear, because they have to ask permission to leave even after their shifts are done and to even go to the bathroom (Goldman 1). The Chinese workforce is starting to realize these problems and they won’t stand for it.

Labor relations in China have become more and more complex, labor conflicts have occurred frequently, and thus labor disputes have been growing with a rate much faster than that of the development of GDP in the past decade. They could become a potential obstacle to the economic development if not appropriately managed. The paper studies the condition of labor relations, and probes the profound reasons for it, and compares it across the world in order to give a description for it.