Two months after the lifting of health restrictions against Covid-19, the return to normal is long overdue in some factories. Many migrant workers who left for their regions of origin for the New Year holidays have still not returned. Report near Shanghai.
At the heart of Suzhou station, in the Shanghai region, in eastern China, travelers getting off the train are immersed for a few moments in the anti-Covid-19 period. Test cabins have been installed on the forecourt of the station, but no screening is carried out.
>> China: the hefty bill for the “zero Covid” policy
These cabins have been transformed into recruitment centers for the factories in the area. Inside one of the kiosks, a hostess explains to us: “Our job is mainly to recruit workers for electronics factories in Shanghai, Wuxi, and Suzhou.”
A very offensive recruitment campaign
This original hiring system is set up to accommodate workers arriving at Suzhou station, those who are called migrant workers in China. Tens of millions have come from the Chinese countryside to work in the country’s large factories. Each year, they go home for the New Year holidays, and then return to their place of work in mid-February. But this year, the return is long overdue: the “zero Covid” policy has left its mark.
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Many migrants have not seen their families for three years and some have decided to stay in their home villages. This is causing great difficulty for some factories which, due to a lack of sufficient manpower, cannot return to their normal production rate, despite the lifting of health restrictions. In Suzhou, the authorities have therefore launched a very offensive recruitment campaign to help businesses. “We send buses to several provinces to go and recruit the workers, describes Lou Jia, responsible for an activity zone. We take them directly from their hometown here to Suzhou. There are a number of service agencies here HR who provide recruitment advertisements for factories.”
“The salaries are not very interesting”
The director of a cosmetics factory also recounts the efforts made in the hope of attracting workers: “To ensure production in the first quarter, we promised five yuan more per hour to the workers, and also a bonus to the agents who recruit. We pay a little more so that our recruitment goes well”also slips.
But after Covid, some migrant workers raised their demands, like this young man from Henan province, who has just arrived in Suzhou: “In our village, I saw that they had sent buses to pick up the workers, but the wages are not very attractive”.
As if the “zero Covid” policy had made migrant workers reflect on their fate. Some companies, like Foxconn, got the message. The iPhone maker had offered in January bonuses of 13,000 yuan (the equivalent of 1,800 euros) for workers who agreed to stay at work over the New Year.