The Chinese nanny indicator

The extent to which the world economic crisis affects Australia will depend largely on what happens to our new biggest export market China. If China continues growing at seven or eight per cent a year our major export industries will not fall over and Australia as a whole will avoid falling into a recession. But should things turn out worse in China than its Government expects then we too will be in dire trouble.
In determining what is happening in China there is the difficulty of getting reliable information from a very bureaucratic and autocratic state. Official statistics are not as reliable as those from the Australian Bureau of Satistics so we must seize on what clues are available.
And here today's offering is not good. The People's Daily is reporting that "with the financial crisis' heightening sense of menace, many are reconsidering what they can and can't afford - and employing a nanny at 30,000 yuan ($4,280) a year is falling into the latter category." The hurricane howling through the world's financial markets, the People's Daily reports, has left an oversupply of nannies in its wake. A source from a local domestic service company said the city's nanny market had dropped 20 to 30 percent in the past year, with nannies' average salaries also decreasing from 2,000-2,500 yuan to 1,300-1,800 yuan.
The current oversupply of nannies is attributed to a flood of workers laid off as businesses have failed.