2010-11-16 17:17

The pay given to migrant workers and laborers will increase rapidly in seven years, the 21st Century Business Herald reported on Tuesday citing a recent report.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) released a report on the Chinese Social Sciences Forum, saying the country will see a declining working age population from 2017 or 2018, which is to reverse the supply-demand situation in the human resource market.

Migrant workers' average wages are reaching the level of fresh graduates, Li Peilin, director of the Institute of Sociology at CASS, was quoted as saying.

A 2010 Chinese entrepreneur's survey released on Saturday by the Chinese Entrepreneurs Survey System showed 94.2 percent of the surveyed entrepreneurs found labor costs higher than that of the 2009 year-end, 0.4 percent said labor costs fell.

Li said a lower working population can be transferred from rural areas to urban cities owing to the aging rural population, and the working age population is to decline in the period from 2016 to 2020.

Massive vocational training is needed for migrant workers, as workers are needed in many technical jobs, with a worker seldom able to fit into a technical vacancy, Li continued.

Cai Fang, director of the Institute of Population Studies at CASS, called for a sound collective negotiation system on wages.