China Focus: Vietnamese workers power factories across border

Sneaking from Vietnam to work in Chinese bordertown Dongxing in 2014, Hoang Thu Nhu as a hairdresser and her husband as an odd job man, the Vietnamese couple were constantly at risk of being sent home as illegal immigrants.

A year later, as beneficiaries of a pilot scheme to allow Vietnamese workers to come to the region, they were finally free from such risks.

Since July 2015, the pilot scheme has allowed eight factories in Dongxing, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, to employ about 1,000 Vietnamese workers as a source of labor.

Working as packers at Dongxing Jinggang Food Company, the couple can earn a combined salary of 8,000 yuan (about 1,200 U.S. dollars) per month, quadrupling the income they would receive back home. In addition, they enjoy a free dormitory as well as meals.

Hoang said they signed employment contracts, written in both Vietnamese and Chinese, and were offered insurance and free training.

"What I learned here can make me a skilled worker at home," she said.

Since the pilot has been a proven success, similar projects will soon be adopted in other border areas, such as Pingxiang City, said Ma Jixian, deputy head of Guangxi's commerce department.

Cross-border labor cooperation brings benefits to Vietnamese and also boosts economic development in China's border area, said Ma.

Like Hoang and her husband, many Vietnamese have flooded into China for higher pay. In Dongxing, a factory job pays about 1,000 yuan more than that in Vietnam's Quang Ninh Province.

Official data shows there are about 4,000 Vietnamese workers in Dongxing and more than 10,000 in Guangxi's Shangsi County.

Seasonal manual work is increasingly popular. For example, in the sugarcane harvest season, many Vietnamese go to sugarcane-rich Chongzuo City, Guangxi, to help reap crops, according to Professor Qin Hongzeng of Guangxi University of Nationalities.

A 2013 report published by the Guangxi University of Finance and Economics said 1 to 1.5 million Vietnamese people reach the working age each year, a number beyond the country's recruitment capacity.

Local workers in Guangxi prefer to migrate to more prosperous areas, such as the Pearl River Delta, leading to many vacancies in factories, said Chu Yang, deputy director of the management committee of Dongxing development zone, home to the companies under the pilot scheme.

Dongxing Yicheng Food Development Company has more than 200 legal Vietnamese workers, accounting for over half of its employees.

Their jobs -- transporting and processing fish products -- used to be a headache for recruitment, said Zhang Dongmei, the company's HR manager.

Pham Thi Hoal Ly felt like home after she arrived at the processing workshop of the company earlier this year. "I found most of the workers in this workshop are from Vietnam," said the 18-year-old.

She is satisfied with the salary, at least 2,500 yuan a month, and would visit her parents and hand deliver her saving to them every month.

"Now all functions of our companies are staffed with Vietnamese workers. And many employers here hope to hire them to address labor shortages," said Zhou Yi, vice general manager of Dongxing Jinggang Food. Endi