Landlocked regions scramble for skilled workers

GUIYANG - Travelling home, the prelude to migrant worker Chen Shilong's annual family reunion to celebrate the Spring Festival, has been incredibly comfortable this year.

Rather than squeezing into a stuffy, jam-packed train for a 32-hour journey, Chen boarded a plane in Shanghai on Tuesday and landed two hours later at Xingyi Airport, located in his home prefecture of Qianxinan in southwest China's Guizhou province.

He left his home in Anlong County to work on the east coast seven years ago, but it was the first flight for the 24-year-old former farmer.

The flight cost as much as his usual one-way train ticket, as the Qianxinan Bouyei-Miao Autonomous Prefecture government chartered a plane to carry Chen and about 90 others originally from the area home this year.

The skills these migrant workers have acquired while working in Shanghai afforded them this special treatment, as prefecture authorities hope the returned workers will consider seeking local employment after the Spring Festival holiday season ends on February 24.

"During the Spring Festival, any migrant worker returning home from Shanghai on the flight will only need to pay 20 percent of the fare, with the rest covered by the prefectural government," said Zhang Zheng, deputy chief of the Qianxinan Prefecture Committee of the Communist Party of China.

"We hope such treatment can lure skilled workers to work at home, as our rapidly expanding industrial parks are in dire need of skilled workers," said Zhang.

With a per capita gross domestic product of 19,608 yuan ($3,151) in 2012, Guizhou is China's poorest province and has seen about 5 million of its workers seek employment in developed coastal regions.

Meanwhile, the economic development in Qianxinan, China's youngest prefecture, is slightly above the province's average.

Although compared with the more affluent east coastal regions, Qianxinan is at a notable disadvantage in the struggle to attract skilled workers, analysts remain optimistic about the prefecture with a population of 3.32 million.

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