The lunar new year is the prime job-hopping season in China, offering signs for the direction of the labour market in the world's second largest economy over the coming year.

After two years of record jumps in wage levels and rising labour unrest, most companies expect slightly fewer steep increases in the cost of labour this year. But employers are resigned to a new labour reality in China where workers are scarce and wages continue to increase.

Large electronics contract manufacturers such as Foxconn, Quanta and Compal have built new factories inland over the past two years. Foxconn employs 100,000 workers in each of its two new plants in Henan and Sichuan, provinces which are among the largest exporters of migrant workers to coastal areas, and the headcount at those two factories is expected to reach 300,000 each.