The daily routines of working and making money have been put on hold so people can return to their hometowns on Spring Festival holidays beginning Thursday, leaving jobs such as housekeeping unattended and service fees soaring.

Feng Li, a young woman from He Chuan village in northwest China's Shannxi Province, has received three job offers to work as a housekeeper in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality during the Chinese Lunar New Year.

The 20-year-old has decided not to go home to celebrate the Festival because the monthly salary of housekeepers and nannies increases to 450 yuan (US$55) during the holiday season, 100 yuan (US$12) higher than the normal.

"I will decide on a specific job after considering the three offers," said Feng Li at the Nanjimen labor market in Chongqing while bargaining with employers who are eager to set the deal.

The director of the Nanjimen market, said while the number of families seeking housekeepers and nannies surges during the Spring Festival, many of the people who usually apply for these jobs, mostly from rural areas across the country, have left for family reunions.

In the days before the Spring Festival, there were no more than 20 housekeepers and nannies available everyday in the market. The number usually exceeds 100.

Statistics with Chongqing Municipal Women's Federation show that Beijing is short of 110,000 house keepers and nannies during the Spring Festival.

Agencies that help match domestic service providers with households seeking assistance in baby-sitting, cooking, food delivery and housekeeping started to prepare for the labor drain long before the Festival by recruiting urban unemployed and university students to fill the gap.

In recent years, demands for domestic service providers have continuously increased across the country.

A survey conducted by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security in Shenyang, Qingdao, Chengdu and Changsha showed 40 percent of the sampled 1,600 families in the four localities need domestic services. Statistics from the Beijing-based Milande Information Co. Ltd. show over 70 percent of households in seven large cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Xi'an would like to hire people to handle housekeeping tasks.

To meet the huge demand for domestic service providers, the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) has built 465 domestic service agencies in 16 provinces and cities across the country. In 2002, over 302,000 women found jobs relating to domestic services in 20 cities through ACWF agencies.

Lei Hengshun, a professor of sustainable development from Chongqing University, said that as China witnesses increasingly fast social change and specified labor division, domestic service will become a new economic growth point and contribute significantly to the national economy.  

(Xinhua News Agency January 22, 2004)