士康(Foxconn)是苹果(Apple)等电子品牌 的组装代工企业，近期发生一系列员工自杀事件，使其形象而受到损害。为此，它提高了工资，并决定将其主要工厂从中国南部沿海城市深圳搬迁到北方的河北省。 但富士康的危机应对措施不仅仅是控制损失，还反映出中国制造业的一些趋势。
一种良性循环正在让中国加快过渡到下一个发展阶段。薪资的上涨并不意味着中国已经不 再是世界最好的低成本制造业基地，相反，它为低附加值就业岗位向国内欠发达地区转移、高附加值行业在过去以制造业为导向的沿海富裕地区发展奠定了基础。
薪 资上涨压力的增加应该不出北京意料。中国的人口结构预示着劳动人口的新进入者数量即将减少，很久以来就可以看出富余劳动力逐渐耗尽的端倪。大家都在说，中 央政府意识到靠出口带动增长的模式在取得巨大成功后受到了威胁，正在为迈向更均衡增长的艰难转型做准备。这不仅意味着出口需求与国内需求之间更加均衡，同 时也意味着内陆省份相对于沿海省份将取得更快的发展。
北京已经在推动制造业就业岗位向内陆省份转移，从而把劳动密集型的制造业活动带往廉 价劳动力供应仍然充足的地区。这样做，给那些在过去30年沿海地区经历出口繁荣期间落在后面的地区创造了就业，同时还有助于中国制造企业维持它们在全球范 围内的成本优势，至少维持一段时间。
薪资上涨不仅迫使企业把产能转移到内陆，也有助于提高消费的增长速度。在多年向出口企业提供隐性补贴 之后，中国政府恢复了人民币升值进程，同时允许薪资加快增长，终于在为家庭购买力的切实增加创造条件。可能有人说风凉话说，政府在这两方面都是不得已而为 之，但结果却是最重要的。
随着越来越多富士康这样的企业决定向内陆转移产能，深圳会剩 下些什么呢？富士康生产苹果产品的产能会暂时留下来，中国领先企业应用软件公司金蝶国际(Kingdee)、办公设备精密零部件生产商亿和精密(EVA Precision)也会留下来。换句话说，留下来的将是那些在价值链上往上转移的民营公司，它们需要有更多工程师、程序设计师和管理人员等高端人才，而 不是大量低技术劳动力。
亿和精密（作者在其中持股）是向更高端生产转移的样本。经过多年小规模试运营之后，它已经成为中国第一批达到必要 质量标准、能够为日本领先办公设备企业生产零部件的公司之一。亿和精密目前正在击败零部件生产领域成本更高而视野狭窄的对手，快速攫取市场份额。这些竞争 对手多为日本企业，它们已把产能转移到中国，但保留了用于日籍管理人员的昂贵成本。亿和精密也在逐渐扩大它在价值链上的覆盖面，慢慢地变为一个面向全球领 先办公设备品牌的一站式采购场所。
这家公司的优势来自于它能够吸引、留住并提拔工程师。当几年前我在其深圳工厂第一次见到其董事长时，他 很愿意讨论这个话题。他特别感到骄傲的是，接近300名优秀工程师都持有期权，分享着公司的成功。
亿和精密等公司可以在广东省继续发展。 邻近深圳这个繁荣的高科技中心，可以让它们吸引到高端人才。与此同时，广东最近宣布最低工资提高20%关系不大，因为像亿和精密非工程师的平均工资是最低 工资的两倍，工程师的平均工资比最低工资高出五倍。相比之下，富士康的模式依赖于数量庞大的低技术工人，使它不得不搬到平均工资低25%的河北省。
更 大的担忧，则存在于那些规模较小、依赖于低技术劳动力同时又无力搬迁、增设厂房或投资更多自动化流程的制造企业。它们将需要合并或者关闭。而且它们不太可 能从中央政府得到多大的支持。尽管大家都说北京专注于防止就业流失，但它曾鼓励中国数个过于分散的行业整合起来──或者是隐性鼓励，比如提高纺织业环境标 准，也或者是显性鼓励，比如强制关闭低端水泥工厂。允许薪资明显上涨，是促进行业整合与产能内迁的又一种办法。
跨国公司和国内大型制造企 业最终会不会选择把产能迁出中国？很多公司已经这么做了。但外迁现象只会影响到价值链的最低端。虽然工资上涨了，鼓励高端制造业留下来的因素还是有很多， 更不用说中国国内的需求必将增加。
例如世界最大的办公设备企业佳能(Canon)，最近就宣布计划把打印机产能迁往中国，以便更接近于全 球需求增长的最大源头。世界最大电脑屏幕生产商冠捷科技有限公司(TPV)，则在武汉增加了产能，明显是瞄准中国将来的需求。与此同时，该公司并不打算向 国外转移产能，因为南亚和东南亚国家缺少工程和管理人才。
从形势来看，工资涨幅最终肯定会超过GDP，因为议价能力正在从制造企业向劳动 者转移。中国将来的问题更多地不在于低端制造业岗位的流失，因为很多这类岗位将会搬到欠发达的内陆省份，而是在于如何让高技术人才赶上沿海地区出现的新机 会──亿和精密等公司已经在处理这样的问题。
Foxconn, the contract assembler of electronics for brands such as Apple, saw its image tarnished after a recent string of worker suicides. The company reacted by increasing wages and deciding to relocate its main factory from the southern coastal city of Shenzhen to Hebei province in the north of China. But rather than just damage control, Foxconn's response to crisis is representative of Chinese manufacturing trends.
A virtuous cycle is accelerating the shift to the country's next development phase. Rather than signaling the end of China as the world's go-to low-cost manufacturer, wage hikes pave the way for the migration of low-value added jobs to the less developed areas of the country and for higher value-added sectors to develop in the wealthier, traditionally manufacturing-oriented coastal areas.
Accelerating pressure on wages should come as no surprise to Beijing. The gradual depletion of surplus labor has long been telegraphed by China's demographics, which point to a looming decline in new entrants to the workforce. By all accounts, the central government recognizes that its extraordinarily successful export-driven growth model is threatened and is preparing for the difficult transition toward more balanced growth. This means not only greater balance between exports and domestic demand, but also faster development of inland provinces relative to coastal ones.
Beijing has been promoting the migration of manufacturing jobs to inland provinces in order to bring labor-intensive manufacturing activities to areas where the supply of cheap labor remains abundant. This creates jobs in areas that have been left behind during the export boom experienced by the coastal areas over the last three decades. It also helps Chinese manufacturers maintain their global cost advantage, at least for some time.
Wage increases not only put pressure on companies to shift capacity to inland areas but also facilitate the shift toward greater consumption growth. After years of orchestrating implicit household subsidies to exporters, China's central government is finally setting the stage for tangible gains in household purchasing power by allowing accelerated increases in wages at the same time as it has resumed the yuan revaluation process. Cynics might argue that the government didn't have much of a choice on either count, but the outcome is all that matters.
As more companies like Foxconn decide to shift production capacity inland, what will stay in Shenzhen? Foxconn's Apple production will stay for now, as will companies like Kingdee, China's leading enterprise application software company, and EVA Precision, a precision-parts manufacturer for office equipment. In other words, private companies that are moving up the value chain and require more sophisticated talent -- engineers, programmers and managers, rather than large volumes of low-skill labor.
EVA Precision (whose shares I own) is emblematic of the transition toward more sophisticated production. After years of small test runs, it has become one of the first Chinese companies to meet the quality threshold necessary to produce parts for the leading Japanese office-equipment companies. EVA Precision is now rapidly gaining market share over its more cost-heavy and narrowly focused parts manufacturing competitors, mostly Japanese companies that have moved their production to China but have retained an expensive overhead of Japanese managers. It is also gradually covering an increasingly large part of the value chain, slowly becoming a one-stop shop for the leading global office equipment brands.
The company's edge stems from its ability to attract, retain and promote engineers -- a process the chairman was eager to discuss when I first met him a couple of years ago at his factory in Shenzhen. He is particularly proud of the fact that close to 300 of his top engineers have stock options, sharing in the success of the firm.
Companies such as EVA Precision can continue to thrive in Guangdong province. The proximity to Shenzhen, a booming high-tech hub, enables them to attract top talent. Meanwhile, Guangdong's recently announced 20% hike in the minimum wage is of little relevance given average wages that are, in EVA Precision's case, twice as high for nonengineers and five times higher for engineers. By contrast, Foxconn's model relies on a very high volume of low-skilled workers, making necessary the move to Hebei, where average wages are 25% lower.
The greater concern lies with the smaller manufacturers that rely on low-skilled labor but don't have the scale to relocate, add new factories or invest in more automated processes. They will need to merge or shut down. And they are unlikely to find much support from the central government. For all the talk about Beijing's obsession with preventing job losses, it has encouraged consolidation in several of China's fragmented industries -- implicitly by, for instance, imposing higher environmental standards in the textile industry or explicitly by mandating the closure of lower-grade mills in the cement industry. Allowing wages to increase significantly is another way to promote both industry consolidation and inland migration of production capacity.
Will multinational companies and large-scale domestic manufacturers eventually choose to locate manufacturing capacity outside of China? Many have already done so. But offshore migration will only affect the low-end of the value chain. Despite increasing wages, there are many incentives for sophisticated manufacturing to stay, not least the fact that local demand is bound to increase.
For instance, Canon, the largest global office-equipment firm, recently announced plans to move printer production to China in order to be closer to the greatest source of global demand growth. TPV, the largest global manufacturer of computer screens, has added capacity in Wuhan that is explicitly targeted at future domestic demand. Meanwhile, the company doesn't foresee moving capacity abroad due to the lack of engineering and managerial talent available in South and Southeast Asian countries.
The conditions are set for wages to finally grow faster than GDP as the bargaining power shifts from manufacturers to labor. The concern for China going forward will be less about losing low-end manufacturing jobs, many of which will migrate to its underdeveloped inland provinces, than matching new opportunities with skilled talent in its coastal areas -- a process companies like EVA Precision are already addressing.