The north-eastern provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang have joined the Pearl River Delta, and several other regions of China, in suffering from acute labour shortages, according to reports in the official media.

Chinese factory owner Foxconn assembles iPads and iPhones and has now announced that in the next few years it will replace a portion of its workforce -- with robots.

The electronics manufacturer Foxconn has been accused of treating its workers like machines as they toil on assembly lines, particularly after a spate of suicides among its Chinese employees in recent years. Now the company, best known for producing iPhones and other hi-tech gadgets, has found a solution: use robots instead.

The Beijing authorities will on 1 January increase the city’s minimum wage for a second time in six months. The monthly minimum wage will go up by 200 yuan to 1,160 yuan, making it the highest in the country. In total, the Beijing Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Department announced six new measures, all of which will go into effect on 1 January, to strengthen its social welfare safety net as price rises begin to hurt the city’s most vulnerable.

The illegal immigrants come seeking higher wages, steady employment and a chance at better lives for their families. They cross the border in remote stretches where there are no fences or they pay traffickers to sneak them past border guards. Then they work as maids, harvest crops or toil hunched in sweatshops. As familiar as this sounds, this is not the United States or Europe, but China, which is attracting an increasing number of undocumented workers to fill the bottom rungs of its booming economy

China Labour Bulletin appears in the following article. Copyright remains with the original publisher.

Carolynne Wheeler
Beijing 19 August 2009

Last fall, Lu Haicheng became a statistic, one of an estimated 20 million to 30 million Chinese migrant workers thrown out of work when his factory, hit by global recession, shut down.

China Labour Bulletin's English Website Editor Geoffrey Crothall appeared in the following television discussion on unemployment and social instability in China.

This edition of Al Jazeera's 101 East first aired Thursday 26 March 2009. Copyright Al Jazeera

China's 130 million rural migrant workers have helped build its economy to become the third largest in the world.

China Labour Bulletin appears in the following article. Copyright remains with the original publisher.

2009-03-09
China's women have legal protection against workplace discrimination—at least in theory, they say.

AFP
HEFEI, China: Women check job listings as thousands gather at a job fair, Feb. 5, 2009.

About 70 workers laid off from a prison in Heilongjiang in 2003 were cheated out of their social security, medical and unemployment benefits. They filed petitions and lawsuits in an attempt to reclaim their benefits but all to no avail. And when they approached a local government office they were attacked by a group of thugs.

Every day since the Chinese New Year, thousands of new graduates have packed the halls of Shenzhen’s talent markets (rencai shichang 人才市场) on Bao'an North Road looking for jobs – the vast majority come away empty-handed. Companies are still recruiting but their requirements are getting tougher and the pay is getting lower.