Labor shortages are driving fierce competition for workers following the Spring Festival, according to China Business News. And as industrial investment shifts from China's coastal provinces to the interior, the hiring scramble is shaping up into a battle between east and west.

All around central and western China, firms are trying to persuade workers to take jobs nearer to home.

In Chongqing, companies are handing out leaflets and holding on-the-spot interviews at railway stations and bus terminals.

In Wuhan, firms are handing out credit-card style plastic cards with recruitment information to workers waiting for trains at the main railway station.

And cities in Eastern China are joining in the scramble for workers. Shanghai sent nearly 400 long-distance buses to Anhui, Henan and Hubei to pick up workers. And the Suzhou High-Tech Zone is permanently decked with banners offering jobs.

Firms are bombarding recruitment agencies with messages. Asahi Electric Corporation is looking for male and female workers between 16 to 35 years old and is willing to pay a commission of 150 yuan for each male worker hired and 200 yuan for female worker. Employment agencies are changing their business models. They no longer charge workers for finding them a job; instead they collect money from employers.

In Guangdong, a hiring manager from Dongguan told reporters that the local government was encouraging firms to send managers on trips to Guangxi and Hunan to recruit workers.

In Shaoguan, in the run up to Spring Festival, the government collected recruitment ads from local firms and posted them at bus stations, railway stations and supermarkets. They also encouraged firms to mount job fairs in migrant workers' home districts.

According to statistics published by Xinhua Digest, the number of migrant workers has fallen by more than 6 million since last year and by more than 20 million over the past three years.

The National Bureau of Statistics put 2009 average monthly incomes at 1455 yuan in the eastern region, 1389 yuan in the central region, and 1382 yuan in the west. This means monthly incomes in the east are only 5 percent higher than in the west, compared to a gap of 15 percent five years ago.

As the investment environment improves in inland provinces, labor intensive enterprises have begun shifting their operations westward. Chengdu and Chongqing each received foreign investment over 6 billion US dollars over the past year.

Sichuan, traditionally a labor-exporting province, is now suffering from severe labor shortages. A survey carried out last year showed that 20 percent of vacancies at the Suining Township enterprises were unfilled at the end of 2009. And the shoemaking industry in Jintang County was also facing labor shortages of around 30 percent.

Faced with a choice between staying home and heading east, what are workers deciding?

According to a survey carried out before the Spring Festival in southern industrial city Dongguan, 84.76 percent of migrant workers leaving for home at the local railway station decided to return to their jobs after the weeklong holiday, 4.37 percent would quit and look for new jobs in the city after coming back, while 10.87 percent would not return.

It seems that, for the time being, eastern cities are still first choice for migrant workers. But that looks set to change.