China is suffering from serious shortage of skilled workers and senior technicians, a research report lately published by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security indicated.

A sample survey conducted in 40 cities showed that technician and senior technician only account for 4 percent of total skilled workers, while enterprises need 14 percent. The most urgently needed personnel are: marketing staff, high-level skilled worker, technician and senior technician.

Over attention to academic performance and negligence of skill training in the current education system is seen as a major cause to the shortage, labor officials said. Although signs of shortage appeared quite early, education and training of skilled workers lagged far behind. Some universities failed to consider market demands when designing their courses, and the top ten majors of biggest enrollment expansion saw an overall decline of employment rate among graduates. Among art designing graduates, for example, only 59.7 percent got employed, a decrease of 21.6 percentage points. Of China's 20,000-odd vocational schools, only 200 are aimed at fostering high-level skilled workers and technicians, and, due to lack of fund and low-pay to graduates, it's hard to foster a large number of technicians in short term.

What's more, the shortage was intensified when enterprises only used skilled workers without training them. A sample survey suggested that the per-capita education fund for employees by enterprises was only 195 yuan in 2003. Some companies, seeking for short-term profits after operation mechanism transformation, used skilled workers without training them.

To ease the shortage, the Ministry has reportedly launched a series of national training programs aimed at fostering 500,000 new technicians in three years.

By People's Daily Online