The only constant is change, especially in China. Just half a year ago, tens of millions of jobless migrant workers from closed export factories flooded job markets and pushed down wage levels, many ending up going back to their farms and villages. But now, manufacturing hub Shenzhen is suffering from a labor shortage again. City authorities said that the market had 60,000 more jobs than available workers in June.

Japanese electronics and automation manufacturer Omron Corp.'s Shenzhen branch said the labor undersupply started in the second quarter, affecting the company's effort to expand production, according to Shenzhen Business Daily.

To some people's surprise, traditional labor-intensive products, such as garments, luggage and cell phones, are leading the recovery of export sales. Chinese researcher Li Youhuan told 21 Century Business Herald that these categories saw a sharp decline in orders since last October. But consumers in export markets are still buying, and the stock inventory has dried up.

Exports of processed plastics products rose 6 percent in the first half of 2009, according to Guangdong Customs.

The current labor shortage is different than the previous ones, as I believe it is more regional, temporary and limited in scale. The gap between jobs and workers will easily be filled, as soon as potential workers hear of the situation and swing back from their hometowns. Before then, wages may climb up a little, but nothing significant enough to drag the recovery.

I know many of our readers are running factories on the ground in China. What's your observation and take?

An industry leader in Beijing recently cautioned that the recession failed to curb overheated investment in China's petrochemical industry in the first half of 2009. New structural problems emerged.

In an interview with China Securities News, China Petro & Chemical Industry Association's deputy secretary in general, Feng Shiliang, made a couple interesting points:

First, investment in the chemical industry (including polymers) leaped 30 percent in the first half compared to a year ago. Second, capacity utilization remains low. By the end of June, the capacity utilization rate is 82 percent for ethylene crackers and 51 percent for PVC facilities.

I can quickly name some resin projects under construction or planning.

In Shanxi province, privately owned coal mining company Xiang Coal Group is finalizing its 200,000-metric-ton (441-million-pound) PVC joint venture project with a scheduled start-up in October. With partner Henan Hengtong Chemicals Co. Ltd., Xiang Coal decided to invest 2.5 billion yuan (US$ 366 million) to build 600,000 metric tons (1.3 billion pounds) of coal-based PVC capacity back in 2007.

Coal-based PVC production model has been losing advantages, as China's industrial-use electricity prices surged and crude oil prices fell. But the projects keep moving forward.
Another example is publicly traded Xinjiang Zhongtai Chemical Co. Ltd., which today announced plans to build 1.6 million metric tons (3.5 billion pounds) of coal-based PVC capacity in the next five years.
Both projects are located in the central and western parts of China, which led China's GDP growth in the first half, compared to the more developed east coast.

Hundreds of disgruntled workers at an injection molding factory in South China decided to go green with their protest against their employer's severance packages. Their act caught the attention of the public and local authorities.

Last week, more than 300 employees of Meiyang Injection Molding Co. Ltd of Shenzhen, Guangdong province, went to pick up litter in a local beach park. Dressed in their uniforms, they were holding flags with the message: "Abandoned workers doing volunteer work," reported by the local newspaper.

Back in March, Meiyang moved to a new location and changed its name. The Japanese-owned company then asked its employees to sign new contracts. More than 600 employees thought the terms were unfair and decided to resign. But the workers found the severance package unacceptable.

Workforce authorities in Shenzhen are now trying to help sort things out between the workers and the company.

Have you heard of Karoshi, the Japanese term for "death from overwork", or occupational sudden death? While Japanese workers have been known for working long hours, the Chinese are definitely catching up if not overtaking them. The long hours, coupled with poor work environment, is resulting in a growing number of sudden deaths in the workplace in cases where employees previously did not show signs of illness.

A recent case in point occurred in a plastics factory in Guangzhou. In the afternoon of August 17, 45-year-old female worker Xian Xiaoqiong passed out next to a molding machine. The factory owner drove her to a nearby community hospital, where Xian was soon pronounced dead from "respiratory failure" in the emergency room.

After the incident, reporters from the Guangzhou Daily went to check out the factory, but the building was shut down with no company name on the outside.

Xian worked for 12 hours straight on the night shift, and started working again at 3:30 p.m. the next day. Her husband told the newspaper that his wife was in good shape. Her coworkers said it was very hot in the factory.

"There used to be a large electric fan at Xian's station, but it was replaced by a smaller one before the tragedy happened," the newspaper reported.

Along the line of Karoshi is the Chinese phrase "pin ming", which literally means to put your life at stake. Many times when I ask Chinese factory owners about China's unique advantage that other emerging countries don't have, they proudly claim: "We Chinese have a pin-ming attitude when it comes to work." In other words, they work to death.

But how much is life worth? How do Chinese people justify risking their lives for a job, especially one that doesn't pay much? Many work with neither proper safety protection nor medical/life insurance at illegal coal mines, toxic battery factories, dangerous construction sites and primitive waste recycling workshops. What are they thinking?

Well, the sad truth is, they don't have much of a choice. They are at the bottom of a society that features an enormous rich-poor gap and a minimal safety network. They risk their lives for the basics - food, clothes, children's tuition and parents' medical expenses, while more and more Chinese enterprises and individuals make those "world's richest" lists.

It's one thing to work to death by preference. It's utterly different when people have to risk their lives just to sustain their lives - and their families'. I wish China gave its citizens an option to not "pin ming."

Factory owners in both the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta are feeling the pinch of labor shortage. As orders pile up, they are trying all kinds of methods to recruit workers, including waiting outside bankrupt factories. Some experts say the labor scarcity will last until the fourth quarter.

In Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, workforce authorities said the gap between jobs and workers jumped 21 percent in the second quarter compared to the first quarter. "Last time we saw such severe shortage in the manufacturing industry was in 2005," an official told the 21 Century Business Herald..

Companies and governmental agencies on the east coast have been asking the inland and Western regions to supply more migrant workers. A human resources manager said the company is using all possible channels to find workers, including using job hunters, going to job fairs across the nation, posting ads, requiring existing employees to refer talent, and offering special monthly stipend to prospective workers..

At Hui Li Feng Toy Factory of Donguan, Guangdong province, general manager Dai Xiuying is regretting letting go 200 workers since last October. Now the company only has 100 workers left and is having a hard time recruiting, Qi Lu Evening News reported..

A government official in Chongqing city in West China told a local newspaper that going to the east coast to be a migrant worker is no longer an attractive option, because Beijing has introduced a series of polices to support the agriculture sector and local employment, and also because the export-led manufacturing industry still faces much uncertainty.