Fewer farmers seeking out the bright lights
Print Edition
the number of farmers seeking non-agricultural work is slowing as more become reluctant to leave their hometowns.
China had 274 million farmer-turned-laborers as of the end of 2014, and 168 million of them had moved to cities to seek work, according to data from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.
However, the growth in the number of non-agricultural workers and migrant workers slowed to 1.9 percent and 1.3 percent respectively, from 2.4 percent and 1.7 percent in 2013.
China has the world’s largest population of farmers. But their willingness to grow crops has waned as returns from the land are typically much smaller than those from working in cities. The trend is slowing, however, amid government efforts to boost agricultural production.
The number of new workers coming from rural areas has been shrinking since 2011, said Vice Minister Yang Zhiming.
The annual increase of workers’ wages has also slowed down. Monthly salaries of migrant workers increased less than 10 percent to 2,864 yuan (US$470) in 2014, down from 13.9 percent registered in 2013 and much lower than the 20 percent increase five years ago.
Skilled workers are badly needed in China, but the majority of migrant workers in China lack skills — only a third have received training before employment. Workers that can be counted as having expertise in their field accounted for 19 percent of all those employed, while highly-skilled talent made up just 5 percent.
Chinese factories have started to have trouble finding qualified workers, while former farmers are familiar with the experience of being turned down for jobs on the grounds they lack skills.
The structural contradiction has become a normal state, Yang said.
The problem has emerged as a hurdle to industrial upgrading in China.
Yang said there were plans to launch a mass training program for 20 million migrant workers each year. “As of 2020, all young migrant workers will be able to learn a trade with subsidies from the government,” he said.
Measures including tax reduction will also be maintained to support companies in the tertiary sector, small and medium-sized enterprises and labor-intensive factories, usually generous employers of workers from the countryside.
In addition, seasoned migrant workers will be encouraged to return to home and set up their own businesses, Yang said, estimating the size of this group at two million currently.
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