Experience has shown that the shortage of workers always peaks after Spring Festival in big cities like Beijing. What needs reflecting on is that most of the jobs vacated are the low-end and poorly paid ones. If employers treated low-end workers better it would not be that difficult to recruit, says an article in Qianjiang Evening News. Excerpts:

Low-end service workers are more discriminated against than high-end workers, such as those in the financial sector. The low-end service workers have a humble social status, earn much less and are finding it increasingly difficulty to deal with the soaring living costs in big cities like Beijing.

Just two years ago, the Bejing authorities tried to control the population by reducing the number of low-end workers in the city.

Some experts also suggested high thresholds for housing prices and educational expenses to curb the city's population growth.

Now, no wisdom needs to be applied to the issue, as those low-end workers are feeling their own wisdom exhausted in trying to afford the rising rents, bear the pressure of poor living conditions, crowded buses and congested roads, and have opted to stay away.

Especially as their children cannot be enrolled in public kindergartens, and they need to pay an extra 700 yuan ($111) or more to get their children enrolled in privately-run preschools.

Commonly, a low-end worker earns some 2,000 yuan a month, so we cannot help but ask if any kind of wisdom will help in dealing with the pressures of trying to live on this meager income in expensive cities like Beijing.

However, even with the rising costs of living forcing more low-end workers to leave Beijing, we cannot expect the city to become high-end.

Without these workers, there will be no one to serve in restaurants, no one to clean the roads or deliver parcels. Even persons and property would be more vulnerable as there would be fewer security guards.

(China Daily 02/21/2012 page9)