QUIET MARKET: A recruitment fair specifically for migrant workers in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, attracted only a few job seekers on February 24 (SUN CAN)

Lu Jiehua from Peking University predicted nationwide labor shortages would occur around 2025, while the current shortages are regional whose seriousness had been exaggerated by repeated media reports.

"China still enjoys handsome 'demographic dividend' of a younger population compared to developed economies and the country's growth still largely relies on its huge labor pool," Lu told West China City Daily.

Gong with the Development Research Center of the State Council told China Business Journal the imbalanced labor marketplace in certain areas did not mean China's "demographic dividend" is declining. He said over the next 10 or even 15 years, China would still need to rely on labor-intensive companies to absorb excessive labor forces from the countryside.

However, younger migrant workers, who are better educated than their parents, seem to be pickier about jobs.

According to a recent survey conducted by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions on the young generation of migrant workers, who age between 16 and 30, they have different understanding about working in cities compared with the elder generation.

Most young migrant workers want to get better chances for career development in cities, while the majority of their elder generation migrates to merely earn a living. Compared with the elder generation, young workers tend to refuse assembly line jobs with higher salaries for lower-salary jobs where they can accumulate experience to start up their own businesses in the future.

Liu Zhibo, a recruitment executive from Foxconn, told Century Weekly, "Young migrant workers want less workload, refuse to work over time and are more mobile."

Zhang Libin, a scholar with Beijing-based Labor Science Studies Institute, believes China doesn't suffer from overall labor shortages.

She said on the one hand companies had difficulty in recruiting young migrant workers due to their highly mobile life; on the other hand, middle-aged migrant workers and college graduates could not find jobs easily.

"China's current labor shortages are structural and the fundamental reason behind the recruitment difficulty is that its demographic structure doesn't match its industrial structure," she said.

Zhang Yi, a scholar with the Institute of Population and Labor Economics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), told China National Radio China's traditional development pattern of relying on the exports of labor-intensive products was facing an enormous challenge.

He said, "China needs to improve its productivity by investing in human resources and upgrading its industrial structure. Otherwise, the country will lose its competitiveness in the international market."

Equal benefits

China was suffering short supplies of migrant workers because its rate of urbanization lags far behind its pace of industrialization, said Fan Gang, a professor at the Graduate School of the CASS and Director of the National Economic Research Institute, at a forum in Beijing on February 19.

He said the rate of urbanization, referring to the portion of residents who stay for more than six months in cities to the total population, was only 48 percent in China, while the rate of industrialization was 70 percent.

"Many farmers work in cities but leave their family members behind in rural areas, preventing them from taking long-term employment in cities," Fan said. "How to encourage these workers to settle down in cities should be a top concern for policymakers in the five years leading up to 2015."

Zhang Hong, a commentator with national broadcaster CCTV, said the labor shortages reflected migrant workers' dissatisfaction with their compensation packages, which should include not only salaries but also children's schooling, pension insurance and other benefits enjoyed by urban residents in cities where they work.

Zheng Fengtian, a professor at Renmin University of China, said a great lure for migrant workers to stay in cities for long-term employment is to ensure their children's equal access to local public schools, which is hampered by the rigid household registration system.

"They expect their children to receive high-quality education in cities and become equal urban residents," Zheng said.

Chatting with netizens on February 27, Premier Wen Jiabao said that schools in cities would be overwhelmed if all migrant worker parents brought their children to cities.

He said, to solve the problem, the government would invest more in improving the education resources in the countryside and ensure children with migrant worker parents living in cities would not be discriminated against in receiving the nine-year compulsory education.