Wyatt_Junker
01-13-2007, 09:36 AM
Its happening a bit sooner than I originally thought.
“China has become a victim of its own success,” sighs Peter Tan, president and managing director of Flextronics in Asia. He finds it especially hard to hire and retain technical staff, ranging from finance directors to managers versed in international production techniques such as “six sigma” and “lean manufacturing”. There are not enough qualified workers to go around, causing rampant poaching and extremely fast wage inflation. “China is definitely not the cheapest place to produce any more,” he says.
An analysis of labour rates across Asia by CLSA's Mr Brixen supports that view. Average wages for a factory worker, combined with social security costs, came to almost $350 a month in Shanghai in 2005 and almost $250 a month in Shenzhen. By comparison, monthly wages were less than $200 in Manila, around $150 in Bangkok and just over $100 in Batam in Indonesia. Although the productivity of Chinese workers is rising, in many industries it is not keeping pace with wages.
The strange experiment where communism and capitalism collide is like throwing a block of ice into your fireplace. It couldn't last beyond its propaganda, basically, and with China experimenting with unionizing its labor base, its only a matter of time...
Link (http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8515811)
“China has become a victim of its own success,” sighs Peter Tan, president and managing director of Flextronics in Asia. He finds it especially hard to hire and retain technical staff, ranging from finance directors to managers versed in international production techniques such as “six sigma” and “lean manufacturing”. There are not enough qualified workers to go around, causing rampant poaching and extremely fast wage inflation. “China is definitely not the cheapest place to produce any more,” he says.
An analysis of labour rates across Asia by CLSA's Mr Brixen supports that view. Average wages for a factory worker, combined with social security costs, came to almost $350 a month in Shanghai in 2005 and almost $250 a month in Shenzhen. By comparison, monthly wages were less than $200 in Manila, around $150 in Bangkok and just over $100 in Batam in Indonesia. Although the productivity of Chinese workers is rising, in many industries it is not keeping pace with wages.
The strange experiment where communism and capitalism collide is like throwing a block of ice into your fireplace. It couldn't last beyond its propaganda, basically, and with China experimenting with unionizing its labor base, its only a matter of time...
Link (http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8515811)