First Lessons in Geography
PLEASE with most important things in only one sentence summary
summarize in 1 sentence with everything most important included: "Humen is one of the pearl river Delta cities that has been transformed by the rise of China. The small textile factory I visited provided insights into the opportunities and challenges that are confronting China today. The 40 or so employees were most likely young, but there were a few older folks. They were making women's clothes for the French market. Most of them made the clothes from start to finish, although there were a few unskilled laborers who were ironing the fabric, cutting off loose ends of thread, and so on. Into each of the items of clothing was sewn a label with a fancy-sounding Italian name. The clothes are sold in Humen for the equivalent of $1.50-$2.50 each, but most of them were destined for France., where they would be sold for 20 times that amount. The employees work under a contract that stipulates a 9 hour day and a base wedge of about $275/month plus basic room and board. They can work more hours, however, and are compensated based on how much they produce during the extra hours. Apparently, almost all employees choose to work extra hours- typically seven days a week, with breaks only on Sunday evenings and one day at the begining of each month. if they work that hard, they can earn the equivalent of close to $500/month. The main workroom had decent lighting and ventilation (it was hot, of course). The manager told me there had been significant upward pressure on the wages of employees, in the last few years, making it harder for him to earn much of a profit. He worried about factories relocating to lower-wage countries. In addition, he said that he was having an increasingly difficult time recruiting employees. He also noted with some mixture of amusement and annoyance that the people who had made out of the best in his part of the city were the former farmers, who either had received substantial compensation (in the form of apartments) for being displaced or who were getting some share of rent for buildings constructed on the land they used to farm."