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Shenzhen’s minimum salary to increase to 1808 yuan

Posted: 12/27/2013 5:03 pm

Shenzhen mayor Xu Qin announced this week that the minimum salary in the city will increase by 13% to 1808 yuan as of February 1. The minimum hourly wage will increase by 13.8% to 16.5 yuan, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reports.

Local governments in China are required to raise their minimum wage levels at least once every two years. The last increase in the minimum salary was made in March this year when it was raised by 100 yuan to 1600 yuan a month.

Shenzhen has long had the highest minimum wage in China. Last year Wired published an op-ed arguing that the latest increase “could cause a ripple effect across the world’s major technology companies.”

Apple, HP, Samsung and Nokia are among the companies that have parts and products manufactured in Shenzhen, so the wage rise could impact the cost of computers, handsets and games consoles worldwide. Original equipment manufacturers such as Foxconn might start looking elsewhere for cheaper bases. But even though manufacturing costs are rising across China, the country is still highly attractive to manufacturers due to its infrastructure.

The announcement was made at the 101st executive meeting of the municipal government, a meeting at which the development of e-commerce was heavily emphasised.

Haohao

Shenzhen minimum wage going up to RMB1,600 a month, RMB14.5 per hour

Posted: 02/8/2013 7:00 am

The minimum wage in Shenzhen will increase to RMB1,600 a month for full-time employees or RMB14.5 an hour for part-time employees on March 1, SZ News reports. This decision was reached at the recent 18th Party congress.

In April 2011, the city’s minimum wage increased from RMB1,100 to RMB1,320 , then last year it increased again to RMB1,500 . Workers who receive less than this amount can file a report to the Labour Supervision Bureau.

Meanwhile, the UK’s Economist Intelligence Unit recently published the global living cost index. The list placed Shenzhen as the third most expensive city in China behind Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Shenzhen ranked 40th in the world, while Guangzhou ranked 7th in the country and 71st in the world. Guangzhou’s minimum wage is currently RMB1,550 a month, according to Southern Metropolis Daily.

Although now slightly out of date, China Briefing has a list of minimum wages by province and municipality.

Haohao

Dongguan minimum wage to increase by 14%

Posted: 12/18/2012 3:29 pm

Dongguan’s minimum wage is set to increase by 14% next month, according to the Southern Metropolis Daily.  The wage is currently set at RMB1,100 a month or RMB10.5 per hour, but Deputy Mayor Tang Qingshou says it’s time for a pay hike.

The Central Government is behind the move, Tang told investors, noting it is pushing cities to increase the minimum wage at least once every two years.

Since last year, the city has been holding conferences for foreign investors to help improve communication and understanding about the city’s business conditions.

This comes at the end of a year that has seen manufacturing jobs return to developed countries as wage increases have driven the cost of manufacturing in China upward. As an article in The Economist said in March: “The old stereotypes about low-wage sweatshops are as out-of-date as Mao suits. The next phase will be interesting: China must innovate or slow down.”

The Chinese government claims to be proactively shifting from low-end manufacturing to emerging industries, as the front page of today’s Shenzhen Daily says.

Meanwhile, The Economist is also questioning whether manufacturing giant Foxconn can continue to grow as the number of workers willing to work for low wages decreases.

Haohao
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