随便问一位北京出租车司机，困扰中国的问题是什么？他们都会毫不犹豫地叹口气答道：中国就是人太多了。
但经济学家们却不同意这种观点。而且，随着中国人口总数达到拐点（新增劳动力数量可能于今年见顶），这个世界工厂的劳动力市场将日益趋紧，中国势必将面临一个艰难的调整。
面对这一转变，中国的邻邦印度希望自己能够从中获益。印度将在2025年超过中国，成为世界上人口最多的国家。今后的14年，印度的新增劳动力数量每年都将增长。
但考虑到该国欠发达、超负荷运转的基础设施，以及受教育程度较低的年轻人，许多分析人士怀疑，印度是否真的有能力填补劳动力市场的缺口。
新德里经济研究机构Indicus Analytics的创始董事拉维什•班达里(Laveesh Bhandari)表示：“印度十有八九无法从中国劳动力增长减缓中受益，这不过是因为，印度还没有为建立像中国那样庞大的制造业做好准备。这里的基础设施有限、且过于昂贵，人力资本基础也不够雄厚。”
到2016年左右，中国的劳动力总数将开始下降。中国目前已显现出劳动力市场日益趋紧的征兆。今年夏季，要求加薪的工人们造成了一连串劳资纠纷和罢工事件，震撼了中国各地。
这些动荡促使人们就中国是否已进入“刘易斯拐点”(Lewis turning point)展开了争论。这一概念是以诺贝尔经济学奖得主阿瑟•刘易斯(Arthur Lewis)的名字命名的，他认为，一旦某个发展中经济体的工业部门的劳动力需求彻底消化掉来自农业部门的剩余劳动力供应，该经济体的工资水平就将大幅上升。
一些经济学家认为，中国在2004年就已进入这个拐点，当时珠江三角洲的制造业企业出现了劳动力短缺现象——尽管在全球金融危机期间，当外界对中国出口的需求下滑之时，短缺压力暂时得到了缓解。
但今年，广州和东莞这两个制造业中心都上调了最低工资；许多企业则在工业园区内增加休闲活动、改善伙食，以降低工人流失率。
此外，电子产品制造商富士康(Foxconn)等企业还着手向内陆地区迁移、靠近劳动力的来源地，希望借此能够更容易招到人。这进而又迫使当地工厂提高工资水平，以应对竞争。
澳大利亚国际经济中心(Centre for International Economics)高级经济学家蒋庭松表示：“人们一致认为，中国可能很快就将进入刘易斯拐点。这一共识是基于人口增长的新动向以及独生子女政策。”
预计未来几年里，不断上涨的工资将迫使制造商退出低附加值行业；另一方面，中国工人在加薪后将扩大消费，在推动国内经济方面发挥更大的作用。
摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)预计，到2020年，中国劳动力占国内生产总值(GDP)的比重，将从目前的15%上升到至少30%，扭转过去十年里工资增长落后于经济增长的趋势。
“如果工资上涨，那么国民收入中家庭所占的比重肯定也会上升。这将是一个非常有益的过程，有助于经济恢复平衡，”独立研究咨询机构龙州经讯(Dragonomics)的董事总经理葛艺豪(Arthur Kroeber)解释道。
但一些经济学家担心，劳动力供应趋紧将导致经济增长减速和通胀抬头。
蒋庭松估计，中国非熟练劳动力数量若减少5%，可能会造成GDP增速减少两个百分点。
一些印度人从中国的劳动力困局中看到了机会。联合国(UN)估计，到2035年，印度人口将较2010年增长26%，从12亿增至15亿；同期劳动力数量将增长33%，达到近10亿人。
届时，处在工作年龄段（15岁至59岁）的印度人将占到该国总人口的65%左右，令该国成为全球最大的劳动力市场。
高盛(Goldman Sachs)表示，未来十年印度的劳动力数量将增加1.1亿人，成为对全球劳动力数量增长贡献最大的国家；未来十年印度的GDP增速可能由此增加四个百分点。
但令许多印度商界高管、经济学家和政策制定者担心的是，印度经济是否能够消化如此众多渴望成功的工人——这些工人主要来自贫穷的乡下，很少或根本没有受过培训。印度每年有近1300万年轻人加入劳动力大军，但该国的职业培训体系每年只能培训310万人。许多印度年轻人甚至缺乏最基本的技能。
班达里表示：“我们没有多少真正受过足够多教育的人。我们的劳动力大多不适合从事中国人擅长的大规模制造业工作。”
译者/汪洋
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001034734
Ask any cab driver in Beijing, and they can tell you without hesitation what ails their country: China just has too many people, they will say with a sigh.
But economists disagree, and as the population reaches a turning point — the number of entrants to the workforce may peak this year – the country is set for a difficult adjustment, with growing labour market pressures bearing on the workshop of the world.
That is a transition that China’s neighbour, India – set to overtake it as the world’s most populous nation in 2025 – hopes to capitalise on, as entrants to its labour market will rise annually for the next 14 years.
But many analysts are questioning whether India – with its overstretched, underdeveloped infrastructure and its poorly educated youth – really has the capacity to take up the slack.
“In all likelihood, India will not be able to benefit from this reduction in the growth of China’s labour force, simply because India is not ready to have a manufacturing sector as large as China’s,” says Laveesh Bhandari, founding director of Indicus Analytics, the New Delhi-based economics research house. “Infrastructure is limited and too expensive, and the human capital base is not deep enough.”
China, where the total workforce is due to start falling by about 2016, is already showing symptoms of a tightening labour market, with the country rocked this summer by a spate of labour disputes and strikes, by staff demanding higher wages.
The unrest has fuelled debate about whether China has reached its “Lewis turning point”, named after Nobel laureate Arthur Lewis, who theorised that a developing economy’s wages will rise sharply once labour demand from industry has exhausted available surplus labour from the agricultural sector.
Some economists believe that China reached this tipping point in 2004, when manufacturers in the Pearl River Delta reported labour shortages – although pressures eased temporarily during the global financial crisis when demand for Chinese exports fell.
But this year, the manufacturing hubs of Guangzhou and Dongguan have both raised their minimum wages, and many companies are expanding leisure activities and improving food at their factory compounds in order to boost worker retention.
Companies such as Foxconn, the electronics maker, have also begun moving inland – closer to the areas where their workers hail from – hoping to make it easier to gain new recruits, and thereby forcing local factories to raise their wages to compete.
“The consensus is that China is probably approaching the Lewis turning point soon, based on recent developments in population growth and also the one-child policy,” says Jiang Tingsong, senior economist at the Centre for International Economics in Australia.
Rising wages in the coming years are expected to drive manufacturers away from low-value-added sectors, while rising consumption by better-paid Chinese workers will play a bigger role in propelling the domestic economy.
Morgan Stanley has projected that Chinese labour’s share of gross domestic product would rise from its current level of 15 per cent to at least 30 per cent by 2020, reversing the trend of the past decade, in which wage growth has trailed economic expansion.
“If wages rise, then the household share of national income must rise. That would be a very beneficial process and that would aid the economic rebalancing,” explains Arthur Kroeber, managing director of Dragonomics, an independent research and advisory firm.
Yet some economists fret that tightening labour supplies will lead to slower growth and higher inflation.
Mr Jiang estimates that a 5 per cent reduction in the size of China’s unskilled labour force could result in a 2 per cent slowdown in GDP.
In China’s labour headaches, some Indians see opportunity. The UN estimates that India’s population will rise by 26 per cent from 1.2bn in 2010 to 1.5bn in 2035, while its labour force will rise by 33 per cent to nearly 1bn.
By then, Indians of working age – 15 to 59 – will account for about 65 per cent of the population, making India the world’s largest labour market.
Goldman Sachs says that India’s labour force will grow by 110m people over the next 10 years, the largest addition to the global labour force, which could potentially add 4 percentage points to GDP growth over the next decade.
But what worries many Indian business executives, economists and policymakers is whether the country’s economy can absorb the masses of aspiring workers, mainly from poor rural areas and with little or no training. While nearly 13m young Indians are entering the workforce every year, India’s vocational training system has the capacity to train just 3.1m a year. Many young people lack even rudimentary skills.
“We do not have people who are actually functionally literate,” says Mr Bhandari. “Most of our labour force is inappropriate for the mass manufacturing practices that China has excelled at.”
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