Taiwanese netebook makers are looking ahead and working to avoid component shortages for there netbooks and notesbooks and have begun to lend out their own employees to suppliers in Southern China. They are hoping to minimize the impact of the labor shortage on their supply of components, according to JT Wang, Acer chairman.
Wistron chairman Simon Lin also pointed out that the company’s production sites in China continued to operate during the Lunar New Year which is a national holiday and a large migration to home towns for local festivities. Wistron did not shutdown during this Asian holiday to avoid employees quitting after returning home for the break. The company will also speed up its hiring, Lin added, but said IT players will need to consider plans to increase their efficiency in order to lower their heavy dependency on labor.
Sources from Compal Electronics pointed out that the company sent workers to assist its upstream chassis joint venture in the third and fourth quarters of 2009; however, Compal may not be able to provide the same assistance again, at the moment, since they are also facing a serious labor shortage.
Sources from netbook & notebook component makers also pointed out that they will also provide assistance by using their higher profile to attract more applicants for positions, but after hiring, transferring the workers to their suppliers.
However, such assistance is temporary and is not a realistic solution to the systemic issues underlying the labor shortage, the sources pointed out.
As a result, some first-tier notebook vendors and makers have already started to move their production bases away from Southern China, specifically the Hong Kong, Guangdong region to inland areas, where the supply of manpower is stronger, the sources noted.
Thanks Digitimes for more great insight into the production of our little netbook buddies
