By Keith Bradsher
Published: February 6, 2009
GUANGZHOU, China: Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are returning here earlier than usual from their home villages after the Chinese New Year holiday. Lugging their belongings in plastic sacks and cardboard boxes, they are hoping to find increasingly scarce jobs. Many will fail.
Liu Yijiang, a 21-year-old worker from Guangxi Province, stopped his bicycle in front of a factory's gate and explained that he had been unable to find work since he was laid off late last year by a ceiling lamp factory and went home to his village.
"I came back early to see if I can find a job," he said. "A lot of my friends are out of work."
A spokeswoman for the Guangdong Provincial Labor and Social Security Bureau said Thursday that 3 million of an expected 9.7 million migrant workers had returned to the province by Wednesday evening. Many have jobs waiting for them, but two million have no employment lined up and must look for work, she said.
Beijing authorities disclosed Monday that based on an agriculture ministry survey of villages just before the Chinese New Year holiday last week, about 20 million of the nation's 130 million migrant workers are unemployed.
In the factory city of Dongguan, adjacent to Guangzhou, many plants have deferred reopening for up to three weeks for lack of orders from the United States and Europe, said Eddie Leung, the chairman of the Dongguan Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises.
At Fortunique, a manufacturer of hospital gowns and other protective wear on the southern outskirts of Guangzhou, about 50 men and women showed up early Thursday morning looking in vain for jobs. More came to the gate through the day.
"I haven't seen that since the early 1990s," when China's economic boom was still in its early stages, said Charles Hubbs, the company's owner.
Security forces are taking precautions to prevent social unrest. Police officers were positioned every few feet along the walls and fences outside the main railway station here on Thursday. Endless throngs of arrivals poured out of the massive building, their faces haggard after journeys that can be 30 hours or more in rail cars that often offer standing room only.
At the nearby intercity bus station, loudspeakers tied with police tape to streetlamps told arrivals over and over again, "Do not loiter or stand at the station. Move on quickly. Do not sit or squat."
One big question is where penniless migrant workers will sleep until they find jobs or return home. Factories here in the Pearl River delta region of Southeastern China, which accounts for nearly a third of China's exports, typically provide dormitories for a majority of their workers.
The rest, particularly married workers, live in crowded nearby apartments.
But factories that have shut down have closed their dormitories. Unemployed workers seem to be staying with friends in local apartments for now, manufacturing and human resources managers said. The provincial labor bureau announced Tuesday that it was setting up free job fairs in the cities. But the bureau also said it would offer numerous subsidies for workers willing to leave the cities and go to rural areas — including free vocational classes, subsidized school fees for children and a waiver of government fees for the registration of new small businesses.
Guangdong Province accounts for nearly a third of China's exports, making it especially vulnerable as Western retailers sharply reduce orders to focus on selling the inventory they already have.
Electric utility use was down nearly 8 percent in December from a year ago in Guangdong and across China. Electricity is an excellent barometer of the Chinese economy because most usage is industrial, said Jing Ulrich, the chairwoman of China equities at JPMorgan Chase.
But Guangdong's actual decline in electricity use is much greater. At least one-fifth of all electricity generated in the province until the last few months was produced by tens of thousands of diesel generators in the backyards of factories, because the provincial grid, unable to keep pace with growth, imposed severe rationing.
This winter, all rationing has been lifted and factories have unlimited access to inexpensive electricity from the grid, so the backyard generators have been shut down.
Wage demands, another barometer of economic health, have plunged. Skilled workers who used to demand up to $430 a month are eagerly accepting jobs that pay half as much, managers here said.
"They just want a job — no demands on salary," Hubbs, the Fortunique owner, said.
One big mystery is how many factories have closed permanently and how many are simply giving long holiday furloughs to their workers. Provincial and national statistics on businesses and factories are often contradictory. And government statistics on unemployment over all are not considered reliable.
Another big mystery is what effect unemployment will have on the number of strikes and other protests that occur here regularly. Some experts are worried.
"It's more possible to cause social unrest if the workers cannot find jobs," said Liu Kaiming, the executive director of the Institute for Contemporary Observation, an advocacy group for labor rights in Shenzhen, a factory city that abuts Dongguan and Hong Kong.
In the last two years, there was — on average — one strike a day involving 1,000 or more workers in the Pearl River delta, and many more strikes by smaller groups of workers, said Han Dongfang, the director of the China Labor Bulletin, an advocacy group in Hong Kong that wants to see independent labor unions and collective bargaining in mainland China.
He cautioned that the frequency of strikes in the region made it hard to tell whether a recent spate of strikes reported in the Hong Kong news media was the result of greater social friction, or simply more reporting in response to the global economic downturn.
Beijing authorities plan rapid increases in economic stimulus spending in Guangdong to offset the downturn in exports here. The focus will be on building more roads, bridges and rail lines in a region that already has some of China's best infrastructure.
But even as government investment starts to accelerate, private investment is declining, which may endanger more jobs.
Preliminary results from a study just completed by the American Chamber of Commerce of South China, which looked at 551 mostly foreign companies, found that they planned to invest $6.5 billion this year. A similar study a year ago found plans to invest $11 billion in the next year.
"We're seeing people investing more methodically and more cautiously," said Harley Seyedin, the chamber's president.
Separately, a national survey of Chinese purchasing managers, released Wednesday, showed that most expected the economy to continue to worsen, although the expected steepness of the decline had moderated somewhat.
Stanley Lau, the deputy chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, which represents the owners of the 60,000 factories in the region controlled by Hong Kong business officials, estimated that 10 percent of these factories had already closed in the last year because of more stringent government policies on labor, taxes and the environment.
Another 5 to 10 percent could close soon because of weaker export orders. "I'm sure there will be more to come," he said.
Hilda Wang contributed reporting.
译文:
出口动摇导致中国失业率膨胀
广州——春节过后，数十万回家过年的农民工再度南下广州，他们都比往年提早赶回来了，盼望尽快找到工作，不过很多人难以如愿。
二十一岁的刘一江表示，他自从去年被一家灯具厂解雇之后就回到了广西老家的农村，今天春节一过就赶到广东找工作。
“我早点回来，看看能不能找到一份工作”他说，“我的很多朋友目前也没工作。”
一位广东省劳动和社会保障局女发言人表示，预计970万农民工中的300万已在星期三晚上返乡。 这当中，许多人有工作等着他们，但有200万人就没那么幸运了，他们必须排队，等待就业，她说。
北京当局在周一时透露，根据农业部在农村的调查显示，春节前的一周，130万农民工中的20万将会失业。
在临近广州郊区的东莞工厂，许多工厂延迟开放，原因是他们手头已经有3周没有收到来自美国和欧洲的订单了，东莞协会外商投资企业的主席埃迪梁说。
星期四，在Fortunique，广州南部郊区一家生产医院手术衣和防护衣门外，约有50个男女早早来找工作，却一无所获。更多的人只是在门口等候。
该厂的老板查尔斯威廉伦奎斯特表示，目前的经济状况是自上世纪九十年代初以来所未见的。
安全部队正在采取的预防措施，防止社会动乱。 .警察被定位在沿线每隔几英尺的墙壁和围栏外的主要火车站。成群的旅客不断大量地涌进，他们的脸在经历了30个小时的颠簸后显得很憔悴。要知道，他们只能在车上站着，因为已经没有多余的位置了。
在附近的巴士站，警察用扬声器和磁带及路灯一遍又一遍告诉旅客， “不要在车站游荡。请快速移动。不要蹲或坐。
最大的一个问题是，身无分文的农民工，在他们没有找到工作几返乡前，将要住在哪里。我国东南部的珠江三角洲，占近三分之一的出口，通常给多数工人提供宿舍。
那些剩余的已婚工人则住在附近拥挤的公寓。
但是倒闭的工厂大多都关闭了宿舍。失业的农民工现在似乎只能住在朋友的公寓里，制造和人力资源管理的经理说。省劳动局周二宣布，在城市提供了免费的工作招聘会。但是他同时表示将给离开城市到农村就业，包括到职业学校中，和注册小企业提供一定的津贴。
自去年12月至今，广东以至整个中国的用电量下降了将近8%。电力是衡量中国经济的一个很好的晴雨表，因为其在工业中的使用，京. 乌尔里希表示。
但是，广东省的实际用电量下降的要大得多。 直到几个月前，广东省内五分之一的电力来源于各个工厂自备的柴油发电机，鉴于多年来广东省因缺电一直实施电力配给制度，工厂曾饱尝缺电之苦。因为是省级电网，无法跟上增长，实行严格的配给。
今年冬季，所有电力配给已经解除，工厂可以无上限用电，并且价格也不贵。因此后院发电机已被关闭。
工资是另一项检验经济的“晴雨表”。过去，熟练工人工资月薪要求430美元，而现在他们为求得工作减薪一半也接受。
“他们仅仅想要工作，工资无所谓，” 奎斯特，Fortunique经理说
一个大的问题是现在搞不清楚哪那些工厂关门是永久的，哪些是暂时的，省级和国家在商业和工厂方面的数据常常很矛盾。公家在失业方面的数据往往不可信。
另一个问题就是，是什么导致失业人群和部分罢工者抗议。一些专家非常担心。
“如果工人仍旧找不到工作的话就很有可能导致社会动,”刘开明，当代社会观察研究所执行主任表示，倡导拥护劳动力的组织遍布深证，东莞和香港
在过去的两年里，平均一天就有涉及1000个或更多的工人在珠江三角洲罢工，包括许多较小的群体，中国劳动公告的主任韩东方表示，香港希望在大陆看到独立工会和集体谈判。
他警告说，在该地区频繁的罢工，很难作出判断近期的罢工是在香港新闻媒体，更大的社会摩擦，或只是更多的报告在应对全球经济衰退作用下的结果。
北京当局计划迅速增加在广东刺激经济的支出，以抵消在这里的出口下降。 重点将放在兴建更多道路，桥梁和铁路线，尽管在该地区已经拥有了我国最优秀的基础设施。
但是，即便政府启动加速投资，私人投资仍在在下降，它可能危及更多的就业机会。
拥有551家外资企业的华南美国商会，最近一份研究报告显示，该商会会员今年计划投资65亿美元，而去年的研究报告发现下一年的投资计划为110亿美元。
该商会主席哈理说，可见企业家们投资变得更加谨慎。
另外，一项周三公布的全国性调查表明，大多数预期的经济继续恶化，尽管预计陡峭的下降趋势已经有所缓和。
刘展灏，香港工业总会副主席，代表60000个工厂业主，控制在该地区的香港商界的官员估计，这些工厂中的百分之十的已经在过去的一年里关闭，因为政府对劳动力，税收和环境更严格的政策。
另外，还将会有5%到10%的工厂关闭，因为虚弱的外贸订单。“我相信还会有更多的工厂加入”他表示。
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