Sep 28, 2011
Translated by Zhu Na

According to a new index measuring wage data in China that was released yesterday, workers in some sectors and areas of the country are seeing their real wages fall due to the fact that wages rises are not keeping pace with price increases.

The new labor index was jointly published for the first time yesterday by Economic Information Daily, a newspaper published by the Xinhua News Agency, and the Seebon Human Resources Research Institute. The data for the first 6 months of this year revealed that the rate at which wages for workers across 4 major industries in 15 cities had increased, was below the rate at which prices have been increasing, meaning that the real wage of many workers is actually falling.

Taking Jan 2010 as the base period for their data, real wages had only increased on average by 1% in the four main industries of 15 cities included in the survey.

When compared to June 2010, real wages decreased by an average of 5% compared by June 2011, indicating that the actual income of ordinary workers had decreased compared to the same period last year.

In addition, the report also shows that the amount of employment is decreasing at Pearl River Delta and other eastern regions which are traditional gathering place of labour force. On the contrary, the amount of employment in western and central regions has increased doublely.

Source
Shanghai Securities News: 上半年多地实际工资呈下降态势 工资跑不过物价