The Huang sisters sat down at a factory recruiting desk, exchanged a few words with a human resources manager and quickly moved on.
“With overtime, I already make Rmb1,500 [$220, €147, ￡132] a month at a computer components factory,” Xiaoxiang, 22, said as she walked through an open-air jobs fair hand in hand with her younger sibling. Xiaodao, 17, has another year of school before she follows her big sister from their village in Guangdong province, China's largest ex-porter, to Dongguan, a manufacturing centre an hour's drive north of Hong Kong.
On a recent weekend morning, there were more company recruiting tents than workers as the sisters strolled through the Dajingli Talent Market, set up on a plaza outside Dongguan's main railway station. Blue skies, balloons and triumphal music added to the relaxed atmosphere and mood of cautious optimism, as China's export sector shows signs of flickering back to life.