中国势将结束劳工低薪时代
ENDING LOW PAY SET TO EMPOWER CONSUMERS AND BOOST ECONOMY
It feels like the end of an era. The spate of strikes and suicides that has rocked China's southern manufacturing belt over the past fortnight could well mark the time that China stopped being a place of limitless cheap labour. And for the economy, that could be a thoroughly good thing.
这让人感觉像是一个时代的终结。过去两周来撼动中国南方制造产业带的一连串罢工和自杀，很可能标志着中国已不再是提供无穷无尽廉价劳动力的地方。对中国经济而言，这可能是一件大好事。
The manufacturing hub in Guangdong province has been buzzing with two different but related stories – the suicides at Foxconn, the company that makes the Apple iPad and other high-tech devices, and a high-profile strike at a Honda components plant.
在广东省的制造业中心，人们热议着两则不同但相关的新闻：一是代工生产苹果(Apple) iPad平板电脑和其它高科技设备的富士康(Foxconn)发生了一连串自杀事件，二是本田(Honda)的一家零部件厂发生令人瞩目的罢工。
Both events have also resulted in eye-catching wage increases – 30 per cent in the case of the Foxconn workers and a 24 per cent offer at the Honda factory (they wanted 50 per cent).
这两件事也都带来了引人注目的加薪：富士康员工加薪30%，本田工厂提议加薪24%（工人们要求加薪50%）。
They are part of a pattern of rising wages across the economy. Dai Qinlan, director of the Careers Information Centre in Wenzhou, another export hub on the south-east coast, said wages are up around 20 per cent in most of the region's factories this year. The city of Beijing announced yesterday that its minimum wage is to rise by 20 percent.
这些动态与中国各地薪资普遍上涨的总体趋势吻合。在东南沿海的另一个出口中心温州，职业介绍中心信息科科长戴琴兰表示，今年当地多数工厂的工资已上涨了20%。北京市昨日宣布，将把最低工资提高20%。
“Companies in China can still get young workers for their factories, but they are going to have to pay significantly more for them,” says Arthur Kroeber, managing director of Dragonomics in Beijing.
“在华企业的工厂仍然能够招聘到年轻工人，但厂方将不得不支付高得多的薪资，”北京龙州经讯(Dragonomics)董事总经理葛艺豪(Arthur Kroeber)表示。
This is not a new phenomenon – there have been reports of staff shortages in parts of Guangdong for several years and wages were heading higher before the crisis hit the export sector in late 2008. And Chinese wages are still equivalent to around a third of Mexican salaries and a quarter of Brazilian ones.
这并不是一个新现象，数年来一直有报道称，广东部分地区出现员工短缺，在2008年后期全球金融危机冲击中国出口业之前，薪资曾出现涨势。同时，中国的薪资水平仍仅相当于墨西哥的三分之一，巴西的四分之一。
Instead, the salary rises in Guangdong this week symbolise a broader shift in favour of labour that has accelerated in recent months and is likely to carry on for several years. They reflect powerful demographic changes resulting from the “one child” policy introduced 30 years ago, with the numbers of new potential workers entering the economy dropping quickly. Economists say China has passed or is close to hitting the “Lewis turning point”, when the pool of surplus agricultural labour tapers off, sparking big rises in industrial wages.
相反，本周从广东传来的加薪消息，标志着整体格局向有利于劳工的方向转变，这一趋势在近几个月加速，并很可能持续多年。这些加薪反映了强大的人口结构变化，其原因是30年前出台的“独生子女”政策，这意味着进入就业市场的新劳动力人数正快速下降。经济学家们表示，中国已经触及（或正在逼近）“刘易斯转折点”，即富余的农业劳动力“池”逐渐枯竭，引发工业工资大幅增长。
Cai Fang, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who has written widely on the phenomenon, says wages for migrant workers increased by between 2 per cent and 5 per cent in the early part of the past decade, and by around 7 per cent in 2004-07. Yet last year they jumped by 16 per cent.
中国社会科学院研究员蔡昉针对这一现象撰写了不少文章，他表示，中国农民工的工资在过去10年的最初几年增长了2%至5%，在2004-07年期间增长大约7%，而去年猛增了16%。
Wage inflation does bring plenty of macro-economic headaches. China was able to achieve double-digit growth over the past decade with minimal inflation, in part because wages grew more slowly than productivity. But if salaries continue to rise, the normal rate of inflation is likely to be higher – and that is in an economy which some fear is already overheating.
在宏观经济层面，工资通胀确实会带来不少麻烦。中国在过去10年能够实现两位数增长，而通胀却微不足道，部分原因就在于工资的增幅小于生产率的增幅。但如果工资继续上涨，那么正常的通胀率就可能更高，而有些人担心中国经济已经过热。
Rising inflation would likely lead to higher interest rates, which could cause a lot of stress among the local governments that borrowed heavily last year to finance infrastructure stimulus projects.
通胀不断上升，可能导致更高的利率，这可能给地方政府造成很大压力，因为它们在去年大举借贷，为刺激计划中的基建项目融资。
Yet wage inflation is a pre-condition for Beijing's main long-term economic goal, boosting consumption and reducing dependence on exports and investment. Raising the incomes of ordinary Chinese is the best way of encouraging them to save less and spend more – and for some observers that is already happening.
不过，工资通胀是北京方面主要长期经济目标的先决条件之一，这个目标就是提振消费，减轻对出口和投资的依赖。提高中国百姓的收入，是鼓励他们减少储蓄、增加支出的最佳途径；在某些观察人士看来，这种情况已经在发生。
“Right now in China we are seeing the opposite of what many people believe in their minds,” says Li Daokui, an economist at Tsinghua University and a member of the central bank's monetary policy committee. “Chinese consumers are beginning to consume.”
“眼下在中国，我们看到的情况与许多人头脑中的印象相反，”清华大学(Tsinghua University)教授、中国央行货币政策委员会委员李稻葵表示。“中国消费者正开始消费。”
Booming consumption will, in turn, lead to smaller external surpluses, as China imports more goods from the rest of the world and helps encourage a rebalancing of the global economy. As long as potential spikes in inflation can be controlled without too much cost, China has a lot to gain from higher wages.
消费繁荣进而将带来较小的外部盈余，因为中国将从世界其它国家进口更多商品，推动全球经济的再平衡过程。只要潜在的通胀飙升能够在代价不太大的情况下得到控制，中国就将大大得益于更高的薪资水平。作者: rainning 时间: 2010-6-11 09:35
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i will they can realize their words romorrow. 1# 星期一