Making stuff is hard....

China’s Industrial Heart Facing Acute Shortage of Factory Workers - NYTimes.com: "GUANGZHOU, China — Just a year after laying off millions of factory workers, China is facing an increasingly acute labor shortage.

As American workers struggle with near double-digit unemployment, unskilled factory workers here in China’s industrial heartland are being offered signing bonuses.

Factory wages have risen as much as 20 percent in recent months...At many factories, white-collar managers and engineers were forced to spend time on assembly lines to meet deadlines before the lunar New Year, because laborers were in such short supply. The managers often struggled with the tedious but intricate tasks required to make everything from toys to DVD players“People working in the office, like me, have been asked to help on the factory floor,” said Sky Niu, the sales manager at the Hengjia Electronics Company in Dongguan. “Of course, we can only help on the simpler tasks, such as packing.”..."