China slump could cut 6 million jobs in Guangdong province
A slump in U.S. orders for China factories, plus higher costs, could cut 6 million jobs in Guangdong province, Bloomberg reports.
"Chinese exporters are the latest victims of the global recession as sales slow and buyers in the U.S., Europe and Japan drive prices lower. At the same time, employee wages and benefit costs are rising," reports Bloomberg's John Liu and Stephanie Wong in this story.
"The crunch may close one-fifth" of the factories in China's industrial Guangdong province near Hong Kong, "and leave 6 million migrants without work next year, according to the Institute of Contemporary Observation, a labor rights group in the province. That would further slow the world economy because Guangdong accounts for 12 percent of the nation's gross domestic product and China is the biggest driver of international growth...
"Two-thirds of China's small toy exporters closed in the first nine months of 2008, according to government statistics. Exports in November fell for the first time in more than seven years, Fan Gang, an adviser to China's central bank, said at a forum in Beijing today."