AS the Spring Festival draws near, Shenzhen had seen 4.81 million people leave the city as of Tuesday. But with the exodus of migrant workers during the travel peak, the imbalance between supply and demand in the service industries is becoming more prominent, raising service prices before the holiday, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

In order to meet the demand for taxi services and reward drivers for working during the holiday, car-hailing service provider Didi said it will continue to charge Spring Festival service fees and launch the simultaneous call function this year. Meanwhile, the platform will provide travel guides for passengers.

The Spring Festival service fees, which vary from 1 yuan (US$0.14) to 9 yuan depending on the time and place, will be given to the drivers in full, said Didi. Additionally, drivers will be rewarded with lucky red envelopes by the platform.

Apart from car-hailing services, residents have also discovered that some courier companies adjusted their prices. For instance, SF Express, one of the major express courier companies in China, is charging an additional 10 yuan for each order during the holiday. Parcel delivery will also be slower than on normal days.

EMS, a delivery service provided by State-owned courier company China Postal Express Logistics Co. Ltd., said in a statement that parcel delivery between Friday and Feb. 19 will take longer than usual and that a service fee of no more than 10 yuan will be charged in some regions.

The price of household services is also rising. Some household service platforms have raised or even doubled the service prices for an hourly cleaning worker.

“Currently, the price for an hourly worker is 65 yuan per hour, which is nearly double the usual price of 32 yuan per hour,” said a resident surnamed Guo while talking about the changes in prices on a home-cleaning service platform she frequents.

Another home-cleaning service platform called ejiajie has also issued a price adjustment notice. During the periods from Jan. 22 to 31 and Feb. 12 to 21, the cleaning service fee will be raised from 35 yuan per hour to 80 yuan per hour, the platform said.

The platform will stop accepting orders for home cleaning and company cleaning between Friday and Feb. 11.  (Zhang Yu)