Because of the shortage of young labor, manufacturing companies are mulling replacing manual labor with automation.

OEM giant Foxconn announced last November that they would invest heavily in producing 1 million robots within three years.

About 6.8 million Chinese graduated from university in 2012 and the education authority continued to warn universities to shut down majors failing to achieve employment rates of 60 percent among graduates.

On the other hand, the employment rate for graduates from vocational schools topped 96.7 percent in 2011.

Experts and scholars believe China's industry is in a key period of transformation and upgrading, and there is an urgent need to reverse the trend of youth turning away from manufacturing.

Li Yong, research fellow at the Chongqing Municipal Academy of Social Sciences, said that only by improving working conditions and salary can manufacturing attract youngsters.

Li also suggested government step up efforts in the new round of income distribution reform to increase workers' welfare and change public opinions in recognizing the value of labor.

Song Fei noted that China lags behind in training skilled workers to upgrade its industry.

Enterprises should be guided to sign contracts with vocational schools to cooperate over cultivating skilled and innovative workers, said Song.

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