The normally busy factory is much quieter than usual, with only a dozen workers assembling the chair parts or sewing chair covers, making the spacious workshop look almost empty.
It was an ordinary day ahead of the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday at Huiye Furniture, a swivel chair company in Anji county, East China’s Zhejiang Province. The county is the world’s largest swivel chair production base, and there is a saying that “one in every three office chairs in the world is made in Anji.”
The proportion increased to nearly 50 percent in the second half of 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, local chair exporters told the Global Times, saying they have a problem of severe labor shortage due to the soaring overseas orders.
The shortage is greater ahead of the CNY, as most migrant chair workers still choose to go home to celebrate the festival in their hometowns.
Huiye Furniture, an exporter with clients mostly in the US, Europe and Australia, has some 300 employees, of whom nearly 70 percent are not locals. Similar to previous CNYs, the company will suspend production for two weeks as the overwhelming majority of its nonlocal workers have left before the holiday, said the firm’s general manager Cheung Xushun.
“All our orders before July have been booked,” Cheung told the Global Times, saying his January and February orders more than doubled year-on-year. “Because of the festival, we have to delay the shipment of a batch of $8 million-worth of products that should have been delivered in February,” he added.
There are some 700 chair firms in Anji including Huiye Furniture that are all worried about their current production capacity failing to keep up with the booming overseas demand, said several chair exporters reached by the Global Times.
Employers have kept raising salaries to attract more workers in the past few months, pushing the average monthly income of chair workers in Anji to more than 10,000 yuan ($1,555). An ordinary college graduate there, by contrast, can earn some 4,000 yuan per month at the beginning.
Flexible policies
To reduce the COVID-19 transmission risks, the Anji government encouraged migrant workers to spend the CNY holiday locally with flexible policies.
“It’s understandable that migrant workers are eager to reunite with their families and celebrate this important festival together,” local authorities told the Global Times. Instead of preventing people from leaving, the government introduced a series of incentive policies to attract them to stay, they said.
At the county’s Dipu subdistrict, for instance, officials organized a lucky draw among local migrant workers who chose to stay in Anji during the CNY. The biggest prize was an 8,888-yuan holiday package consisting of cooking oil, cakes, schoolbags and a full table of dishes made by a restaurant.
On February 2, 10 days ahead of the holiday, local officials sent the package to the apartment of the prize owners, chair worker Yan Zhou and his wife Li Jü, who are from a village in Southwest China’s Guizhou Province.
This is the first time that Yan and Li have not gone home to celebrate the CNY. “It’s a pity that we are going to miss a precious family reunion, but we don’t regret it – staying here is good for all,” Yan, told the Global Times, saying there’s no need for them to worry about being infected by the virus on trains anymore.
The local government also arranged some traditional cultural activities for the children of migrant worker families who stay in Anji, including teaching them to make New Year’s pictures. “We keep serving companies, residents and front-line [workers],” government officials told the Global Times.
Chair firms are trying to attract nonlocal employees to spend the holiday in Anji as well, providing them with presents and bonuses.
“In my company, those who stay here will get 1,000 yuan in gift money, one week of paid home leave and a three-day tour this year after the epidemic situation improves,” Cheng told the Global Times.
A man works at Huiye Furniture in Anji, East China’s Zhejiang Province. Photo: Yang Hui/GT
