BEIJING, NEWS, ANALYSIS: “I Count My Balance Every Night”: A Better Job From 2008 Olympics is Reason Why

By Deng Jing, Li Xiaoshu and Zeng Yan

The fingers of her bare wrinkled hands are stained red from the heavy bricks carried across the construction site for the No. 4 Beijing Olympic Subway line. Kong Yu, a 37-year-old migrant worker from rural China, piled them up beside a metal fence in the heat of the noontime sun amid swirls of gravel and dust.

"Not tiring at all compared with farming," she said, "I'm still young and I can handle it." She also more than tripled her income.
Kong and her husband moved to Beijing from Henan Province in central China three

months ago to work on the nearly $8 billion subway expansion. Their two children stayed behind with their grandmother to attend middle school while they labored to prepare Beijing to handle the expected flood of Olympic visitors to this traffic-clogged city.

"Farming is not profitable at all since our total annual income amounted to less than $500," she added.

Kong Yu is one of the some 4 million migrant workers seeking a better life in Beijing by working on Olympics-related construction projects.

Another migrant, Mr. Wang, earns slightly higher wages as a porter at the construction site--enough to send his son to a college where yearly tuition amounts to $748.

"I stay with the project in order to earn more from a long-term perspective," said the white-haired 52-year-old. "I need the money. Ten thousand ($1,280) means a lot in my village."

Construction workers aren't the only ones in demand as a result of the Olympics. Investments and spending

generated by the Games are expected to create as many as 1.3 million new jobs in Beijing, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"At the end of 2008, the overall Olympic investment will add up to 1.5 trillion Yuan under a preliminary calculation," said Ding Xiangyang, chairman of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform.

"In the United States, it cost $2.5 billion for the city of Atlanta to host the Summer Olympics 10 years ago, but the Games created 770,000 new jobs and the state economy grew by from $6.3 billion to $14.5 billion, according to infrastructure," said Jeffrey Matthew Humphreys, a University of Georgia economist.

Similarly, the advanced job opportunities in an expanding pre-Olympic market may also provide opportunities for university graduates, people changing jobs, laid-off workers and others.

A report in China Youth Daily said the GDP per capita in Beiing would reach $6,000 in 2007, up from $5,457 in 2005.

"I'll have a personal account then," said Qiu Cuixia, a female worker partnered with Kong Yu, contented, "Sometimes I can buy what I want."

The official Xinhua News Agency says job growth spurred by the Olympics will affect the construction, tourism, transport, retail, food and professional consulting businesses as well as the creative and cultural sectors.

Wei Xiaozhen, chief Accounting officer of Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics, said new construction jobs will peak next year, while the service industry will see its largest increases in 2008.

The Olympics has an unparalleled ability to capture people's imagination and interest and to mobilize human and financial resources, experts say. The challenge is to ensure that the jobs generated are both sustainable and can be accessed by local residents.

Sydney, Australia set up a training program to up-skill its workforce in advance of the 2000 Games, targeting a select number of anticipated growth sectors, including volunteerism designed to help the disadvantaged.

"It is far different from a domestic competition," said Ye Qiaobo, the former Olympics champion, now an MBA candidate in Qinghua University, "Qualified talents should expand expertise in not only sports but also foreign language, marketing, and management."

The Beijing Olympic Action Plan raised concern on the employment growth, pointing out that skill shortages of high-quality and versatile personnel meeting international standards have already been identified in the major industries available for vacancies created as a result of the Olympics.

"We will spare no effort to train more management personnel who understand international practice in city administration and economic management, who have international vision," said a Beijing Olympics official. "Specialists in Olympic affairs, international law, international business, international finance and insurance, electronic information technology, environmental protection technology, will also be trained."

Anastasios Kyvellos, an Olympics finance expert from Greece, said, "The shortage of a skilled workforce is a challenge China faces in the preparation (for the Olympic Games)."

Jin Yuanpo, a professor of Humanistic Olympics Studies Center in Renmin University of China, echoed in conclusion, "In fact, there is a rule underlying the impact Olympics exert on different industry. We will see a lack of talents specializing in the Games."

Around 20,000 specialists in language will complete their training before 2008, to facilitate communications with some 21,000 international journalists, Xinhua has reported.

Beijing Foreign Studies University, the top university in language studies in China, has been designated as an "Olympic Project Center," an undergraduate program for Olympics language training for students seeking internships with Olympics organizations.

Dai Ting, a senior student majoring in e-business, took a national exam to enter the program but failed. "I was frustrated, even lost my direction," she said. "Two-years of hard work and I end up with nothing."

Migrant workers also are eager to get professional training, but most were turned down as unprofessional.

An exception was Yu Hua, leader of the building team for one of the Olympic Stadiums who was admitted into Beijing Institute of Technology and the highest wage earner on the construction site. "I was trained for more than one month and finally got to stay here, but some other unskillful workers were dismissed," he said.

"The number of migrant workers who attend the test for certain technical certification has snowballed to 30,000 last year," said the vice director of the Center of Occupational Skill Testing Authority.

Even without such training, Kong Yu is happy to be working in Beijing for much higher wages,

"I used to grow corn in the land," Kong Yu said, "Your mind is always in a blank confronting the hard life, not to mention anything related to big events like the Olympics. I may be moved away from Beijing in 2008, but I count my balance every night."

Photos by Li Xiaoshu