Challenges of the changing labor market

Once again after Spring Festival, the world's most populous country has faced a shortage of migrant workers.

According to media reports, the shortage this year not only happened in the east coast export-processing areas, such as the Pearl and Yangtze river deltas, but also in less developed areas, such as the Xinjiang Uygur and Inner Mongolia autonomous regions.

Even in the provinces that traditionally export labor to other areas, such as Henan province, the biggest source of labor in China, the labor supply can barely meet the demand. One local newspaper in Henan reported on Feb 8 that even after raising wages by 10 percent, companies still faced a shortage of workers. There was a similar situation in Anhui, Sichuan and Hunan provinces, which all used to provide labor to the east coast.