Acer, the world's third largest PC vendor, says it is keeping an eye on a personnel shortage in China that could affect PC production.
"There is a labour shortage in China, which is new to me," said JT Wang, chairman of Acer, during the company's third quarter investors' conference in Taipei. "China has 1.4 billion people, how can they have a labour shortage?" he asked rhetorically.
Acer's China-based component suppliers and PC assemblers have said that in some cases they have lost 1,000 workers overnight, and have had to seek new employees. The Taiwanese company will work with suppliers on new strategies to make sure the issue does not affect production, Wang said.
He characterised the concern as small, and unlikely to become a major issue in the near term.
There has been a growing shortage of skilled labour in the East coast cities of China, in part due to government efforts to develop the nation's inland areas, said one analyst. Many factory jobs used to be filled by migrant workers, but now that many companies are building factories in China's interior, people feel they can stay at home and work instead of traveling to the coast, according to the analyst.