THE monthly wage of a domestic helper was now about 2,200 yuan (US$330), higher than a university graduate, because of a shortage of maids, the Daily Sunshine reported.
Domestic helpers wages had increased from about 1,600 yuan a month to 2,200 to 2,500 yuan this year, but many families still had trouble finding maids for the Spring Festival, the Daily said.
There has been a shortage of domestic helpers since August because of the harvest in rural areas and this became more serious in December because many maids returned home for the festival.
The number of maids has fallen by at least 30 percent this year, Wang Yanliu, president of Jinguo Domestic Service Co. Ltd., said.
One of the main reasons was a drought in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Most maids in Shenzhen were from Guangxi and many returned home because of the drought back home, Wang said.
Meanwhile, with the economy developing in other provinces, many women did not want to work too far from their homes.
I went with the labor department to recruit maids in Sichuan Province a few months ago. We recruited about 100, but only five came to Shenzhen in the end. In the past, I had at least 50 maids in the company at this time of year, but now I have no more than 10, she said.
To attract maids, families had to raise their salaries. Maids wages in Shenzhen were far less than in many other cities in China and that was one of the reasons for the shortage. In places such as Shanghai and Zhejiang Province, maids wages are already 2,500 yuan, Wang said.
Many domestic service companies think high salaries have nothing to do with educational backgrounds. The key is how much you do for your employers, said Ai Xiaoxiong, chairman of the Shenzhen Association of Domestic Service.(Wang Yuanyuan)
