Guangdong labor authorities Tuesday lifted a 10-year recruitment ban on enterprises hiring migrant workers within one month after the Spring Festival holidays.

The ban, well known as the "six not-alloweds," included not allowing enterprises to recruit new migrant workers from other provinces, not allowing employed migrant workers to bring new workers to Guangzhou to work, not allowing employment agencies to introduce migrant workers from other provinces to Guangzhou to work, not allowing migrant worker fairs, not allowing any posters, advertisement, or information on migrant workers recruitment within one month following the Spring Festival.

An official in charge of the provincial labor department said the "six not-alloweds" had no legal foundation and they deprived migrant workers of their right to take a job. Another reason for lifting the ban was to prevent a labor shortage in some industries.

The new policy abolishes all the bans and requires more guidance for the demand and supply of migrant labor and more help for migrant laborers.

The old bans were mainly for the convenience of government administration and easing pressure on Spring Festival travel period. A survey by Guangdong provincial Labor and Social Security Department (LSSD) in eight major industrial cities of the Pearl River Delta showed that labor-intensive enterprises had been troubled by worker shortage last year.

Nearly 90 percent of the factories in Dongguan, a city known for its numerous Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao businesses, were in dire need of workers in last summer. The city boasts a floating population of more than 6 million while the number of its permanent residents is only 3 million.

(Shenzhen Daily January 13, 2005)