Guangdong continues labor recruitment drive amid outbreak

South China's Guangdong province, one of the country's economic powerhouses, has planned to organize more than 360 online recruitment events between Feb 1 and March 31 to help solve the province's labor shortages after the novel coronavirus outbreak is brought under control in the coming months.

As of Friday, more than 20,000 migrant workers from around the country have signed letters of intent with local companies to work in the province so far according to Ge Guoxing, deputy director of Guangdong Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security.

"More than 5,000 Guangdong companies, including foreign-funded, joint ventures, State-owned and private-run firms, participated in online recruitment events, taking place in major cities in the prosperous Pearl River Delta and offering more than 280,000 vacancies for migrant workers from around the country," Ge said at a Friday news conference.

During the epidemic, migrant workers from around the country can now seek jobs in Guangdong through their computers and mobile phones at home, he said.

Ge's department is negotiating and coordinating with counterparts from the country's major labor-outsourcing regions, including Hunan, Sichuan, Jiangxi and Henan provinces and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, asking them to arrange and organize more workers to return to the province after the epidemic. 

Guangdong has also planned to recruit more graduates from vocational and professional colleges and schools from around the country this year, he said.

Guangdong, known as a major production base of the world, annually needs a large number of skillful workers to support its economic construction.