any source..??
coz as per the below article it is not what u say....
international labour cost comparisons - employment costs steel manufacturing - steelmaking production economics
China -1.1
India-0.9
now no way it is like what u say...infact it is equal almost......or is it wrong..?
That is old.
One source said according IMF that is 4.7 times, and the other said that is 1.6 times.
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Minimum wage, China vs India: is cheap labor the real answer for Chinas success in manufacturing?
China has been said to be the Worlds factory and cheap labor is said to be the reason why China attracts most of the manufacturing activities away from developed countries as well as from other developing countries.
Africas wage level is much lower than China, but they are never on the radar screen as threat to Chinas position though. Nevertheless, lets make a more relevant comparison between China and India.
India has a hard time in attracting manufacturing firms to move there. Many Indians attribute the failure to thats because we dont have cheap labor; we focus on service industry with higher value-added
Lets compared the minimum wage of China and India to get a idea of who really has cheap labor.
Take Chinas Guangdong province as an example. This province is where manufacturing activities agglomerate and where most immigrant workers from inland provinces are employed.
The hourly minimum wage in Guangdong province of China (Effectively July 2006- July 2007) :
Shenzhen (Special Economic Zone) and Guangzhou (two core cities, where manufacturing activities are moving out):
4.66 Yuan/hour ( = 0.58 USD= 26.7 Rs.)
Shenzhen (outside SEZ), Foshan, Dongguan, Zhuhai, Huizhou, where most of the sweat shops are actually located:
4.02 Yuan/Hour (=0.5 USD = 23.1 Rs.)
For India, I heard that the minimum wage is between 7.5 -12.5 Rs./Hour.
(Please correct me if I am wrong; and if anyone can provide me with the minimum wage level, the actual enforcement, and the coverage of workforce, in typical manufacturing-intensive regions in India, it would be most helpful for me to make a more representative comparison)
So, minimum wage in China's manufacturing sector is between two to three times that of India!
You may argue that laws are never actually enforced in China. Well, indeed, complicated laws usually get circumvented in China. Thats why the most common violations of labor laws in China are, among others, paying normal wage for overtime work, insufficient safety and health work conditions, insufficient compensation for work-related injuries, no compensation for lay-offs... These laws get circumvented because employers always managed to maneuver the vague language of the laws in favor of themselves.
Minimum wage requirement however is in general complied by employers particularly in foreign-owned factories, because it is so easy for regulators to monitor and verify, particularly considering that most factories in the area are in the formal sector and not small workshops.
The most power force however is the market: today if you pay lower than the amount required by the minimum wage, I doubt you are able to recruit any skilled workers to work in Guangdong province, and most employers find it not worthwhile to go down the skill ladders. Labor cost after all constitutes only small fraction of the cost in typical factories producing electronic equipments and employers do not want risk having lower quality of disgruntled workers. For details see my previous post in the Bulletin: Unlimited labor supply in China? Not anymore! Wages are hiking!
As a matter of fact, this is exactly why the minimum wage is set to the level where it is now, i.e. almost equal to market-clearing prices. The employers basically control the whole legislative process.
But still, the minimum wage level in Chinese sweat shops is much higher than in India where unions have bargaining power in the legislative process of labor laws.
Well, maybe the difference is not that high. First, living expenses in China is higher; second, Chinese workers in sweat shops typically have at least 9 years of education.
After all, it is the whole package: infrastructure, administrative efficiency, and education level of workers, flexibility of hiring and firing, etc. that are driving the location decisions of manufacturing firms
Update:
In a report by Deloitte and Touche "India and China: The Reality Beyond the Hype", it is cited that,
according to IMF data, typical monthly wage for manufacturing workers in China is almost 4.7 times that in India. But I am not able to verify the number it from the original source. (Hat tip: PSD Blog)
Posted on May 30, 2006 in China, Editorials, Global Economy, India, Written by R-Squared | Permalink
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