One day last week, the welcoming committee sent by the world’s largest manufacturer of microwave ovens waited in vain outside the main railway station in Guangzhou, capital of China’s southern Guangdong province.
上周的一天，由世界最大微波炉制造商派出的欢迎委员会，在广州火车站外徒劳地等待着。
Liu Tingting, a recruiting executive with Galanz, chatted with a dozen uniformed colleagues as migrant workers exiting the station streamed past them. All were wearing red and yellow sashes emblazoned with the message that “Galanz welcomes you”. But there were few new recruits to welcome.
格兰仕(Galanz)的招聘主管刘婷婷（音译）与十几个身着制服的同事们聊着天，出站的农民工络 绎不绝地从他们身边走过。格兰仕的人员都戴着饰有“格兰仕欢迎你”字样的红黄彩带，但几乎找不到可以欢迎的新员工。
“The global financial crisis has eased and orders are coming back, but the labour shortage is relatively severe,” Ms Liu said, admitting that her team’s effort was an unusual one. “We don’t usually come to the train station to look for workers.”
“全球金融危机已经趋缓，订单又回来了，但劳工短缺相对严重，” 刘婷婷表示。她承认，自己团队的这招是不寻常之举。“我们通常不会来火车站寻觅工人。”
China officially returned to work this week, after the end of the lunar new year holiday, with factory managers more optimistic than ever that the worst of the global financial crisis is behind them. There is just one problem – the workers many factories were so quick to let go in late 2008 and early 2009 are not lining up outside their gates any more.
春节假期结束后，中国在上周正式上班。工厂经理们认为全球金融危机的最糟糕阶段已经过去，他们在这一点上比以往任何时候都更为乐 观。只有一个问题：那些在2008年末和2009年初被很多工厂着急辞退了的工人，现在已不再排队等在大门口了。
“It’s kind of a scary situation, quite frankly,” said Charles Hubbs, the American owner of Fortunique, a Guangzhou-based medical products manufacturer. “If we were to get swamped with orders, where would we get the workers? There are going to be some interesting times ahead.”
“坦白地说，情况有些吓人，”广州医疗产品制造商Fortunique的美籍所有者查尔斯•哈布斯(Charles Hubbs)表示。“如果我们接到大量订单，该上哪儿去找工人呢？未来一段时间会很有意思。”
After 14 months of year-on-year declines, the value of China’s exports finally increased in December. According to the General Administration of Customs, China’s foreign trade figures for January recovered to 2008 levels. Then confirmation earlier this month that China had pipped Germany as the world’s largest exporter reinforced confidence that the country’s factories are back.
在连续14个月同比下降后，中国出口 总值终于在去年12月实现增长。海关总署(General Administration of Customs)的数据显示，中国1月份的外贸数字已恢复到2008年水平。本月早些时候有消息证实，中国已超过德国，成为世界第一大出口国，这令人们更 加坚定地相信，中国的工厂已经重新开工。
The workers they rely on, however, are not back, despite ever greater inducements for them to return. Galanz was seeking 1,250 workers for a range of posts paying between Rmb1,700 ($249, £161, €184) a month for entry-level positions and Rmb2,800 for more skilled technicians.
但它们所依赖的工人并没有回来，尽管吸引他们回来的诱惑越来越大。格兰仕打算招聘1250名员工，从月薪1700元人民币的初级职位，到2800元人民 币的技师。
“We haven’t found anyone today,” Ms Liu admitted, clutching flyers that smacked of desperation. They boasted of complimentary food for the first month of employment, cooling herbal teas on hot days, free dorm rooms with en suite washrooms and hot water, and computer, library and leisure facilities.
“我们今天一个人也没招到，”刘婷婷坦言，手里捧着一摞传单，其内容带有绝望味道，称上班头一个月免 伙食费，天热时提供凉茶，住宿免费，室内有独立卫生间和热水，还有电脑、图书馆和休闲设施。
Workers’ ambivalence towards such offers is due in part to better opportunities closer to home. In previous years, Zhuang Benchao would have been a potential recruit for Galanz. Last year he worked in Huizhou, a manufacturing town east of Guangzhou.
工人们之所以在这样的条件面前举棋不 定，部分原因是离家更近的地方有更好的机会。要是在前几年，庄本超（音译）可能会去格兰仕。去年他在广州以东的制造业重镇惠州打工。
Earlier this week, he could instead be found waiting for an interview outside the gates of a large toy factory in his hometown of Shaoguan, the largest city in Guangdong’s poor and mountainous northern region, close to the border with inland Hunan province. “It’s better to work closer to home,” said Mr Zhuang, 20, who lives in Shaoguan’s city centre with his parents. The young man’s conviction that there is no place like home is at least good news for Early Light, the Hong Kong-owned toy factory where he was being interviewed.
可上周早些时候，他在家乡 韶关（广东北部贫困山区里的最大城市，靠近内陆省份湖南）一家大型玩具厂门口等待面试。“在离家较近的地方工作更好一些，”庄本超表示，他今年20岁，和 父母一起住在韶关市中心。小伙子对家的依恋，至少对于旭日(Early Light)来说是好消息，他就是在这家香港老板的玩具厂接受面试的。
In previous years, Early Light has had to source workers from as far afield as Xinjiang, in China’s far north-west. Last July, a riot at the toy factory pitting Han Chinese workers against their Muslim Uighur colleagues left two of the latter dead and was the spark for an even worse bloodletting in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, where an additional 200 people died in inter-communal clashes.
前几年，旭日不得不从中国大西北的新疆这么远的地方 招工。去年7月，在该玩具厂发生的一起骚乱中，汉族员工与他们的穆斯林维吾尔族同事发生斗殴，造成后者死亡两人，此事在新疆首府乌鲁木齐引发了一起更糟糕 的流血事件，有200人在民族冲突中丧生。
Back in Guangzhou, companies such as Fortunique are adapting to the more challenging human resources environment by turning to temporary workers who, Mr Hubbs says, “are not looking for a career in the factory”. Temps account for just over 10 per cent of his factory’s 400-strong staff and provide a “short-term shot in the arm when you need it”.
在广州，像Fortunique这样的公司正转而求助于临时工，以适应更具挑战性的人力资源环境。哈布斯表示，临时工“不打算在厂 里谋求事业发展”。在他厂里的400名员工中，临时工的比例刚刚超过10%，他们“在你需要的时候”为你注入“一剂强心针”。
At the other end of the talent spectrum, the American entrepreneur has recently begun hiring university engineering graduates for supervisory positions previously filled by older workers with experience on the manufacturing lines. “We want to review how we do things and how we can do things with less hands,” Mr Hubbs said. “We think we can do that with better educated university graduates who come in with a fresh approach.”
在人才谱系的另一端，这位美国企业家最近已开始聘用工程学专业的应届大学毕业生，让他们从事监督管理工作，而这些岗位原 先是由具有生产线经验的较年长员工担任的。“我们希望重新审议我们的做事方式，以及怎样才能节约人手，”哈布斯表示。“我们认为，教育程度更高、想法新鲜 的大学毕业生能够帮助我们做到这一点。”