Fu Yan, a 19-year-old Sichuan native, has been wearing the pink uniform for woman employees at Foxconn Technology Group since the middle of last month.

Unlike some Foxconn employees who had to travel more than 2,000 kilometers to the coastal city of Shenzhen, Foxconn's hub in South China, to join the company, Fu only had to travel 200 km from her hometown in Zizhong, Sichuan Province, in Southwest China to land a job packing products for Foxconn's branch in Chongqing.

"I'd rather work near home. It saves me time and effort to buy transport tickets home for the Spring Festival. And the (salary) payments here are not so bad compared with those in coastal cities," Fu said.

Fu is not the only one who has benefited from a number of companies expanding into the western and central regions of China.

After years of rapid economic development in eastern parts of China and in the nation's coastal cities, more and more young people from western China are staying put and choosing to work near their hometowns instead of leaving their families far behind.

Since China's reform and opening-up in the late 1970s, coastal cities in the east have been leading the country's economic development. But as more foreign investment flows in, cities in the western regions of China are now attracting local people and jobseekers from the east with opportunities and higher wages.

The number of migrant workers in East China was about 90.8 million in 2009, a drop of about 8.9 percent from the previous year. The number of migrant workers in western China increased by 35.8 percent, reaching 29.4 million, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China.

Fu, the only child in her family, is a prime example of this demographic swing in China's economy. Before joining Foxconn, she worked in a toy factory in Foshan, Guangdong Province, and earned 2,000 yuan (US$298) a month during the summer. She quit after three months because she said the sweltering working conditions in the factory were unbearable.

"They didn't have electric fans in their factories," said Fu. She earns 950 yuan a month during her probationary period for Foxconn Chongqing, but she said it will rise to 1,400 yuan in three months.

"There is not much difference between the wages since the cost of living in Chongqing is relatively low. And the two-hour drive from home cannot be bought by money," she said.

Foxconn's three 18-story dormitory buildings in the town of Xiyong in Chongqing - all of which are equipped with safety nets on the second floor as precautionary measures after a series of suicides this year at its Shenzhen factory - are filled with 10,000 local recruits. Men in black uniforms, women in pink, all speak with a similar Sichuan accent.

Apart from Foxconn, Quanta and Inventec, which are large electronic manufacturers, also expanded their factories to Xiyong. Frank Chien, manager of Inventec in Chongqing, said few parents are willing to let their children work far from home due to the family planning policy.

(China Daily November 6, 2010)