To cope with a shortage of skilled workers, Guangdong Province is planning to establish new training schools.

The province will create 75 schools to train workers in specific areas, 45 will be key national-level schools.

The number of students for majors that are in great demand in these schools is expected to hit 360,000 in the next four years, sources with the Guangdong Provincial Labour and Social Security Bureau said.

"We are making efforts to develop a healthy working and studying environment to train more skilled workers," said Fang Chaogui, director of the bureau.

The province is also considering restructuring the current occupational qualification certificate system, to improve the working environment for skilled workers, Fang said.

For example, college students will be given specialized training that will be able to directly apply for technical qualification certification after graduation, Fang said.

In addition, the province will grant more favourable welfare policies for skilled workers and bring in more such workers from other regions, Fang said.

This South China's business hub has seen rapid economic growth in the country in recent years. A large number of skilled workers is needed to sustain that development.

It is estimated that the province will need 8 million skilled workers by 2005.

However, Guangdong Province is suffering an acute shortage of skilled workers, sources with the bureau said.

At present, there are only about 240,000 senior skilled workers in the province, accounting for 4.3 per cent of the total workforce in the industrial sector.

The rate of such skilled workers in the province is less than in Beijing or Shanghai.

Meanwhile, Shengyang, capital of Northeast China's Liaoning Province and also a traditional heavy-industry hub, plans to expand vocational education to ease the severe shortages of skilled workers.

"I believe it is time for us to upgrade our educational system and improve vocational education," said Lu Xin, vice-governor of Liaoning Province.

She was backed by the local educational department whose statistics show that senior high school students have doubled to 600,000 compared with 1997.

But the trouble is there is little room to expand the scale of senior high school education.

Many university graduates and even students returning from overseas have experienced employment difficulties in recent years.

On the other hand, Liaoning is suffering an acute shortage of skilled workers.

To tackle the problem, the Liaoning provincial government plans to set up 10 training centres for training skilled workers, 100 technical schools and 1,000 modern professional majors in the next three years.

Some technical schools are taking measures to training workers in great market demand.

"Training adjustments in accordance with market demand is the basis for solving the problem, but government support is also important," said Wang Qiang, president of Shenyang Vocational and Technical College.

In fact, many industries across China have faced this dilemma, especially economically developed regions.

These regions, recording the fastest economic growth in the country in recent years, need large numbers of skilled workers to sustain their high rate of development.

Shanghai, in the Yangtze River Delta, will suffer a shortage of 18,000 skilled workers in the next three years in craft design, machine tool operation, electric and optical equipment operation.

A recent report on the city's job market in the second quarter of this year shows the job/candidate rate is as high as 27:1 for electronic component manufacturers.

Even in Liaoning, the country's old industrial base and once the cradle of skilled workers, the shortage of skilled workers is severely hindering the region's revitalization.

Tens of thousands of skilled workers are urgently needed in Shenyang's equipment manufacturing industry, the local labour department said.

Official statistics show that among the 70 million workers in the nation, senior technicians account for only 3.5 per cent, compared with a 40 per cent ratio in developed countries.

The dearth of skilled workers has had a negative effect on China's development, said Zheng Gongcheng, a professor from the Labour and Human Resources Department of the Remin University of China.

"This would not only prevent international companies from moving their high-value added production lines to China but also hinder domestic enterprises' competitiveness," said Zheng.

Editor: Olivia