Battle for laborers

The increasingly insufficient supply of rural laborers points not just to the gradual diminishing population dividend China has enjoyed in the past decades, but also to a historic shift in both the country's economic structure and its social progress.

Immediately after this year's Spring Festival, enterprises in costal areas, such as Shanghai and Jiangsu sent coaches to rural villages in Anhui and Sichuan seeking rural laborers. As the developed costal regions are now having to offer a larger share of their development fruit to attract rural laborers, they are promising higher wages and better working and living conditions.

At the same time, the booming western and central regions cannot afford to lose the battle for laborers in their endeavor to catch up with their costal counterparts. So central and western cities are doing whatever they can to attract rural laborers to promote their own economic growth. An increasing number of local governments are making preferential policies to solve practical problems for rural laborers - from providing better living conditions and better social security to providing education for their children.