Friday May 20th a training was held in Shenzhen focusing on student workers and interns. The labour shortage is expected to spread from the pearl-river-delta region to the inner regions and pose a significant challenge for factories. To ease their pressure, some factories employ student workers or interns to fill the gap in their workforce.

More than 70 participants from factories and brands discussed the issue on May 20th. The factories shared that student workers and interns are easy to manage, they are cheaper and they are good to have during peak seasons. However, a few issues regarding student workers and interns were unclear such as social security, contracts and whether to pay the salary to the schools or not. Professor Huang from Sun Yat-Sen Unversity clarified the laws and regulations regarding student workers and interns.

In the afternoon a few sessions on practical solutions were held and there was also a session on the new generation of workers. The training was very practical and hands on with several examples and group work. The feedback from the participants was good and a few quotes were: “pragmatic cases”,” I like the speakers’ sense of humor” “nice and interactive sessions and good Q&A”.