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Migrant workers take new paths amid depression

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-11-24 09:27

GUANGZHOU -- Twenty-year-old Zhou Xiong quietly squatted beside his luggage at the Guangzhou Railway Station, waiting for the train heading to Mianyang city of Sichuan Province in southwest China.

He decided to end his four-year migrant worker's life and enter school again in his hometown to learn something practical, such as machine repair.

"I just want to launch a new chapter of my life -- to learn something and start my own business in my hometown. I think my hometown, which was hit by the earthquake in May, might provide me with more opportunities, as massive reconstruction work is launched there," he said.

Zhou had worked for a furniture factory for four years as a painter with a monthly salary of around 2,000 yuan ($293). "Despite the global financial crisis, the factory operated quite well and I still earned 1,500 yuan a month. I quit the job merely because I have my own dream."

Wang Shanjian, 35, is another preparing to restart a rural life.

"I am good at farmland work and many agricultural taxes and fees have been exempted. I decide to return to farmland again," he said.

Wang and his wife could earn a total of 4,000 yuan a month, but the living cost was high, too. "I prefer to living a rural life, for it is stable and the living cost is low."

While many migrant workers in the Pearl River Delta in south China choose to go back home for their own reasons or because of the closure of some small and medium-sized enterprises amid the global financial crisis, there is not yet a flood of laid-off workers streaming out of this southern province of China.

The employment situation of migrant workers in Guangdong Province remained stable but the prospect appeared grim, Xiao Zhiheng, executive vice governor of Guangdong, said on Wednesday.

Human Resources and Social Security Minister Yin Weimin on Thursday also said that the global financial crisis might lead to more job losses.

Passenger flow at the Guangzhou Railway Station, the major railway station in the Pearl River Delta which attracts at least 30 million migrant workers, is an important yardstick.

The latest statistics from the station show that daily passenger flow was between 68,000 and 70,000, slightly higher than the same period last year.

Minister Yin also noted that in Jiangxi Province in east China, one of the major migrant labor providers, there were 6.8 million residents working in other provinces. A total of 300,000, just under 5 percent, had so far returned home. In the meantime, Yin warned that the number of homecoming migrants might increase and the situation demanded further observation.

He expected an improvement in the second quarter next year when government measures to boost domestic demand begins to take effect.

China currently has 120 million migrant workers. If there were massive job losses the future could be full of unrest. Coping with the global financial crisis, the government has tried to protect the interests of migrant workers.

In a bid to avert social turmoil, cities in Guangdong, such as Dongguan, Foshan and Shenzhen, aim to provide a variety of skill training for migrant workers. The Dongguan city government is planning to ask all enterprises to pay into a government reserve fund to guarantee workers' wages if factories close.

In the central and eastern provinces of Henan, Hubei, Jiangxi and Anhui, local governments held job fairs for the returned migrant workers. Sixty enterprises provided more than 3,600 jobs for migrant workers in a single job fair held in Hanchuan city, Hubei province.

Back in the Pearl River Delta, many high-tech or large-scale enterprises are busy recruiting new employees after some small enterprises closed. And other enterprises are not laying off workers amid the crisis. Instead, they are shortening their hours to lower costs and to keep the skilled workers in factories ready for the upswing.

For 26-year-old Xie Chunlan, just recruited by the Sun Hing glasses factory in Dongguan city, believes there is still much to be hopeful about.

"I have worked in the Pearl River Delta for several years and have got accustomed to the urban life. In the city, I have many friends and my horizon is broadened," Xie said.

She noted that she seldom thought of going back home, a village in the northern part of Guangdong. "Hometown life is boring. People have to go to bed around nine o'clock. Moreover, villagers at my age are all working outside," she told Xinhua.

Despite the global financial turmoil, Xie did not think finding a job in the city too difficult. "Family members and villagers always exchange information about job vacancies, so if I choose to live in the city, finding a job is not a problem."