Saipan a top market for Chinese labor

Saipan has become one of the top markets for Chinese labor, according to a report from China Daily.

Quoting figures provided by China International Contractors’ Association, it said that there are more than 500,000 Chinese laborers working abroad, mostly in East Asia, Southeast Asia, North Africa, North America, the Gulf and Europe.

“East and Southeast Asia are currently China’s biggest markets, where three-fourths of the country’s exported laborers are working. The Republic of Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Macao and Saipan are all top markets,” China Daily said.

These workers are employed in industries ranging from construction and transport to domestic help, medical services, mining and textiles, it said.

Singapore reportedly employs the biggest number of Chinese laborers, with most of the nearly 100,000 migrants working in construction.

In the Middle East, Israel is China’s biggest labor destination. About 15,000 Chinese laborers, 90 per cent of whom work in construction, are employed there. In Africa, Mauritius employs the most Chinese laborers, in its textile sector.

With this growth comes an expansion in the number of Chinese firms licensed to contract and export labor abroad. At the moment, there are now about 1,400 of these companies.

Following two decades of rapid development, China’s labor export industry has expanded to more than 180 countries and regions, China Daily said. “Since 1980, the country’s contract volume for overseas projects has been growing at an annual average rate of 35.1 per cent, according to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce. By the end of 1999, the industry was worth US$75 billion, with turnover of about US$54 billion,” it added.

In 2001, it stood at US$8.5 billion, accounting for 4.37 per cent of all goods exported. Given China’s rich human resources, the country’s export of labor has huge potential for development – although it lags far behind the value of goods exported, which topped US$300 billion in 2002.

The report said that there are two main legal avenues for exporting labor from China.

The first is project based, a hangover from aid projects in the 1970s, when state-owned companies would send workers to other developing countries.

The second channel is via companies specializing in sending people abroad for work, usually in construction but also in areas such as manufacturing and agriculture.

Despite the fast growth, China’s labor exports still only make up a small proportion of the world’s total, according to the World Labor Organization.

The organization estimates that globally, the number of people laboring abroad is between 30 million and 35 million each year, with about 15 million coming from Asia.

In recent years, India, Thailand, Viet Nam, Indonesia and even the Philippines have become China’s leading competitors within the labor exporting industry.