EVERYBODY'S GOT HANDS, RATHER FEWER HAVE BRAINS:

China's impending talent shortage (Swati Lodh Kundu, 7/06/06, Asia Times)

A labor shortage, with a population of 1.3 billion? As unbelievable as it may seem, this is precisely the situation China now confronts.

With a huge supply of low-cost workers, mainland China has fast become the world's manufacturing workshop, supplying everything from textiles to toys to computer chips. Though China has a vast pool of unskilled labor, firms in the south now complain that they cannot recruit enough cheap factory and manual workers. The market is even tighter for skilled workers. As the economy grows and moves into higher-value-added work, the challenge of attracting and retaining staff is rising with the skill level, as demand outstrips supply.