"Most companies have already established a comprehensive coping mechanism to deal with this annual phenomenon and are reluctant to invest much more money and energy to make a big change," he said.

Around 80 percent of the employees at Chant Tech, a new materials company in Huzhou, Zhejiang province, are migrant workers.

With orders for wiring harnesses for new energy vehicles and tungsten wire for solar power systems up 30 percent year-on-year, the company once again offered incentives to retain workers and recruit new ones to ensure orders can be delivered on time after the holiday.

Over 200 temporary workers started a week of pre-job training on Jan 10, much the same as in previous years.

"On top of triple wages, regular and temporary employees who stay on during the Spring Festival holiday are provided with an additional subsidy of 200 yuan ($27.90) per day," deputy general manager Zhao Jianxue said. "Adding the regular paychecks during the training period, it's already a significant expenditure."

He said 80 of the temporary workers were students from vocational schools in provinces such as Hunan, Shandong, Yunnan and Guizhou, adding that the school-enterprise cooperation programs had been established for years, and the students were easier to manage than random recruits.

The service industry has also recruited college students to work part-time, starting during the winter holidays.

Despite this year's Spring Festival beginning nearly 20 days later than last year's, the Hilton Beijing Tongzhou hotel, expecting a surge in tourism, started the recruitment process for its catering department much earlier. The first batch of temporary workers began working on Jan 8, whereas the recruitment notice had not even been released by that date last year.

The hotel said applicants "should have good command of a foreign language and etiquette to serve international guests", and also required them to provide proof of their college enrollment.

This year, the salary was increased by 25 percent to 3,000 yuan a month.

Guo said that the recurring seasonal labor shortage should not be a cause for panic, as the market was resilient. However, local governments should map the market situation, remind companies to make early arrangements and provide coordination.