Catherwood LibraryILR School

For decades, China's massive workforce of factory hands and construction workers had little choice but to work long hours in often poor conditions for pitifully low salaries. But a mushrooming of factories, even in the country's sluggish interior, mean that these days workers have more clout than ever when hunting for jobs. Wages are being pushed up and firms' margins are being squeezed. "Companies are finding it harder and harder to get people," said Xue Guojie, visiting his parents' three-room farmhouse in Henan, a central province which is home to millions of migrant laborers who fan across China ever year.