Wendy Zhang/ Shanghai Daily news

Low labor costs have made it hard for local restaurants to recruit attendants, the Oriental Post reported today.
Job recruitment papers have been posted at nearly two-thirds of the restaurants on five streets near Nanjing Road West.
"We began to recruit attendants more than half a year ago, but no one will stay here for long, even though we raised monthly salary from 500 yuan to 600 yuan (US$60-US$72)," said the boss of a dumpling store on the Maoming Road N, adding that compared to the previous years, there are fewer applicants this year.
"We cannot find a female attendant even through job agencies," said Du Shouhua, a veteran hotel manager.
"I often suffered when working in a restaurant previously and felt tired after a day of work, but now I found a job in a factory with regular life," said Hong Xiu, a migrant worker from Shandong Province. She added that her monthly salary is 900 yuan now, 400 yuan more than before.
Jobs in restaurants are not fixed and with no security insurances, said another migrant worker.
There are 3.75 million migrant workers in Shanghai this year, nearly the same as last year, according to the Shanghai Labor and Social Security Bureau.
The latest survey of migrant laborers indicates that they are paying greater attention to their salaries being compatible with both their work and the city's consumer levels.
Low salary is the main reason for the difficulty in recruiting personnel in local restaurants, said Gu Jun, a sociology professor with the Shanghai University, adding that the local consumer prices are increasing rapidly, so salaries should be raised.
With the conditions in the suburban areas largely improving and farmers' incomes being raised, unsatisfactory revenues in the urban areas will possibly encourage them to return to their hometown, Gu indicated.