Some cities do not have enough taxi drivers not because cabbies don't earn enough but because the unjust profit-sharing arrangement is keeping away people from the profession. To resolve the problem, the government should first break the monopoly in the industry and then regulate the weird profit-sharing arrangement between taxi-drivers and companies, says an article in Yangcheng Evening News. Excerpts:

Some cities such as Hangzhou in Zhejiang province and Guangzhou in Guangdong province are facing an acute shortage of taxi-drivers. People in such cities are complaining that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get a taxi and operating companies are saying that taxis are lying idle for want of cabbies.

Rising gas prices and ever increasing living costs are factors that are keeping people away from the profession. But the primary factor is the existing taxi administration system and unreasonable charges that cabbies have to pay.

In Guangzhou, for example, a taxi-driver has to pay about 10,000 yuan as so-called management fees. Many other unreasonable charges are imposed on cabbies under some pretext or the other.

Thus, nearly all taxi-drivers have to work overtime to earn a decent income.

The monopoly of taxi companies prevents outsiders from knowing the operating costs and the profit they make. Administrative control rests in the hands of special interests groups, because of which they make high profits.

So the profit-transferring chain between component authorities and monopolists should be broken to restore order in the sector. One way of doing that is to not raise taxi fare or provide subsidies.

(China Daily 05/31/2011 page9)