Despite offering financial incentives, service industries in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai were left short-handed by the New Year exodus of workers.

Watami, a leading Japanese restaurant in downtown Shanghai, saw, as expected, less business during the holiday. Even so, the restaurant manager, surnamed Liu, said that even with the fall in customer numbers, it still experienced a severe shortage of workers.

"We have no specific regulations during Spring Festival, so employees can go home if they wish. But to keep more staff members in Shanghai, we offered them subsidies which can amount to about 500 yuan ($82) as long as they worked at least one day during Spring Festival," Liu said.