Service sector understaffed over Chinese Spring Festival

Despite offering financial incentives, service industries in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai were left short-handed by the New Year exodus of workers.

Watami, a leading Japanese restaurant in downtown Shanghai, saw, as expected, less business during the holiday. Even so, the restaurant manager, surnamed Liu, said that even with the fall in customer numbers, it still experienced a severe shortage of workers.

"We have no specific regulations during Spring Festival, so employees can go home if they wish. But to keep more staff members in Shanghai, we offered them subsidies which can amount to about 500 yuan ($82) as long as they worked at least one day during Spring Festival," Liu said.

Lu Yan, a shop assistant at a Converse shoe store in central Shanghai, said the manager offered compensation of about three times workers' regular salaries during the first three days of the holiday as required by the law.

Zhou Mingliang, manager of Lovepet Pet House in Beijing, said the business looked after double its usual number of pets over the holiday, but only had half its normal staffing level.

"We usually take in about 15 pets, but this year we had 30 pets, mainly cats and dogs, staying here for the holiday," he said. "But we had only five people taking care of them. The other six staff traveled back home."

Zhou said the pets started to arrive at the shop on Jan 25, just as many workers were going on leave.

The five people who worked over the holiday received double payment.

"We always lack hands during Spring Festival," Zhou said, adding that many of those who stayed were divorced women as they often decide not to return home.

Despite the shortage of staff and extra work involved, the animals' care fees stayed the same, he said.

Wang Xiaoying, a doctor at Beijing Yinghuayuan Animal Hospital in Beijing, said the hospital had only two staff members to take care of pets during the holiday.

"We usually have more than 10 people working here, and looking after pets while their owners are away is a small part of our business, but we are still very busy over the holidays."

Jin Feng, a taxi driver in Beijing, said he noticed that garages and other places offering carwash facilities were closed over the holiday. "Prices for those that were open were slightly higher," he said. "Usually it takes 20 yuan to wash my taxi. On those days, it could cost 25 or 30."

A staff member at Aojierui Car Service in Beijing said almost all the company's workers returned home during the holiday, and it had to hire temporary workers and pay them more.

Contact the writers at zhangyue@chinadaily.com.cn

Cheng Yuli contributed to this story.