Increase of Illegal Foreign Workers in China Due To Labor Shortages

Increase of Illegal Foreign Workers in China Due To Labor Shortages
Name
Institution

Increase of Illegal Foreign Workers in China Due To Labor Shortages
Introduction
A report that was issued by a Chinese media, The Guangzhou Daily newspaper, has shown that there are more than 5,000 workers who are illegal in the southern part of Guangdong province (Hewitt, 2015). The report indicated that the workers came from the neighboring areas like southern Asia and they were aged between 20 to 30 years (Dodson, 2011). The workers were being paid below the minimum wage for the local workers in that area because of labor shortages. This paper describes the reasons why there is an increase in the number of illegal foreign workers in China.
Reasons behind the Trend
The report by the daily newspaper was not conclusive on where the workers came from, but it suggested that they came from areas bordering China such as Vietnam. These workers are now working in the factories, in the home to manufacturing industries in China. The study indicated that some of the workers had been smuggled into the province by people who practice the human trade. These people are called ‘snakeheads’. Wishnick (2014) categorically stated that an example is a factory that dealt with the manufacture of shoes in Dongguan that had 53 workers who had been smuggled into the country illegally. A majority of the workers were women, forced to work for 10 hours and more at the factories. The workers were poorly paid at 1.3 to 1.6 dollars per hour, which was below the minimum wage for the locals (Hewitt, 2015).
The workers had a fear of being detained because of being illegal immigrants in China and so they had to spend most of the day in the factories. They did not have insurance and so they were not entitled to any health benefits. 20% of the wages earned by these workers was being taken by two human traffickers based in the factory (Wishnick, 2014). The traffickers were responsible for taking the rest of the wages to the workers’ families, back in their homes. However, the workers were reported to claim that the w...