Having previously suffered from a shrinking labor force, South China's Guangdong Province is luring back migrant workers because of a "significant rise" in welfare and wages, labor authorities said.

The average monthly income of a migrant worker in the Pearl River Delta rose to 1,298 yuan (US$170.80) in the first half of this year, up 150 yuan on the same period last year, according to figures released by the provincial labor and social security department.

The figure has also for the first time surpassed the average 1,296 yuan (US$170.50) per month in the Yangtze River Delta, another big labor pool in the country, which had previously lured workers out of Guangdong.

The province has stepped up efforts to improve the protection of legal rights and welfare for the migrants.

About 83 percent of the 17 million migrant workers in Guangdong signed legal working contracts with their employers last year. This percentage ranks first in the whole nation, Fang Chaogui, director of Guangdong department of labor and social security, said during a conference.

According to the department's statistics, 36 percent of migrant workers have purchased insurance against injury at work with reimbursement from their employers.

At the same time, 41 percent have purchased medical insurance.

Both percentages are the highest in the country.

Efforts to resolve pay disputes are also improving, Fang said.

The number of cases regarding employers delaying payment of salaries has dropped by 14.2 percent in the first half of this year.

Up to the end of last year, 2.06 million children of migrant workers received compulsory education in Guangdong.

Meanwhile, the provincial government approved 500 million yuan ($65.8 million) to improve skills training for migrant workers and farmers. In all, this money has benefited 691,000 Guangdong farmers and 1.06 million migrant workers.

"Improving the benefits for migrant workers is very important, as it influences the province's economic development," Xie Qianghua, vice-governor of Guangdong, said at the conference.

Guangdong was once seriously affected by labor shortages, as many migrant workers flowed to other economically booming locations where better salaries and working conditions were available, such as the Yangtze River Delta and Bohai Bay Region.

However, the trend appears to be reversing.

According to Fang, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security conducted a survey in the first season of this year in which it found 20.9 percent of migrant workers in the whole country are working in the Pearl River Delta, 11.6 percent are in the Yangtze River Delta and 11.9 percent in the Bohai Bay Region.

"The figure will keep growing given the improving welfare for workers in the province," Zheng Chaoyang, vice-director of provincial department of labor and social security, told China Daily.

(China Daily September 11, 2007)