Many Chinese businesses will be facing an employee lottery over the coming weeks and months, because as many as ten million migrant workers are expected to travel home to be with their families over the spring festival time.

However, it is feared, said the Financial Times, that as much as 30 or 40 per cent of these migrant workers may not return to work after the festival due to poor wages.

One factory owner, Li Weihang, told the news provider that the only way to make sure he still had enough employees was to raise wages considerably.

"The only way of finding new workers will be to raise wages again – I think we'll have to raise by at least 15 per cent."

China is currently performing better than most countries in terms of unemployment, and recently, it was reported by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security that unemployment in 2011 was just 4.1 per cent.