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Job market still grim in Guangdong as exports falter

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-04-09 14:27

BEIJING -- Zhang De, a migrant worker from Sichuan Province, returned to Guangzhou shortly after Spring Festival in search of a job. Still searching two months later, he is torn between staying in the industrial heartland and going back to his rural hometown. Zhang is desperate to find a job before he runs out of money and has to leave Guangdong, the province that has been home to China's export-driven boom over the last three decades.

The global financial crisis caused many small export-oriented factories in China's coastal regions to close, leaving millions of workers without jobs.

A migrant worker arrives in a railway station to try to find a job in the city.[Xinhua]

Guangdong Province accounts for nearly a third of China's exports, making it especially vulnerable as western retailers cut back on orders and focus on clearing the inventory they have already piled up.

According to the Labor and Social Security Department of Guangdong Province, 9.46 million migrant workers returned to the province after the holiday. Many had jobs lined up, but 2 million came in search of work.

April and May should have been the high season for manufacturers here, but the crisis has changed the economic climate drastically. Orders are showing no signs of recovering. Many enterprises are running with a skeleton staff and waiting for the economy to improve.

"In the past three months, orders have continued to slump," said Guo Weiwen, secretary-general of a local shoe makers' association. "For large enterprises, orders have fallen by 30 to 40 percent, and for small ones the situation is even worse."

"With nothing to do, enterprises are unwilling to recruit workers," he added.

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Wu Zhenchang, who owns a shoe factory in Guangzhou, has seen orders shrink since last year, as consumers in the United States, the EU and Japan lose confidence in the economy and, as a result, cut back on their spending.

"It will be difficult to turn things around in a short space of time," he said.

His factory is one of many now operating at half capacity and trying to keep going by axing jobs.

"We have cut our workforce from 20,000 workers to 13,000. If the situation worsens, we will have to let more workers go," said Wu.

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