Letters to the Editor
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only city wages are increasing
Wages for city workers...increasing. Wages for office workers in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Xiamen, QingDao, Guangzhou, Dalian... increasing, but not very fast. There are a lot more college graduates now a days to choose from. I can always go to the NorthWest of China and get an OK mechanical engineer fresh-graduate for as little as 2000RMB / month (around $300USD). Same with chemists, IT people, etc. I would not want to hire an older engineer from a state-owned company, so their wages can't go up as fast.
Remember, there is still an itinerant population of some 100 million people here...redundant agricultural labor. What causes wages to go up (I believe) is real-estate and cost of living. There is no shortage of unskilled labor in China, and there is a huge pool of high-school graduates and college graduates are to choose from. In short, I don't think anyone is going to break the middle-class barrier by being a secretary or factory worker (or even Line Supervisor) for many years to come.
If anything, there is a shortage of employment infrastructure to protect young workers shipped in from the countryside.