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Migrant workers feel the pinch amid crisis

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-03-02 12:28

SHENYANG -- Unemployed Qin Zhongli stands in front of a vacancy billboard at a job market in northeast China's Shenyang City. 

A woman sits on a electric motor bike displaying her job descriptions skill on tags as she seeks for a job on a roadside in Shenyang in northeast China's Liaoning province Saturday, Feb. 28, 2009. [Agencies]

An experienced chef, Qin, 35, earned 2,000 yuan (US$290) a month last year, a decent living for his wife, daughter and son back in his village in the eastern province of Shandong, 1,000 km away.

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"I don't know what to do. It's the worst time in my life," he mumbles in the chilly breeze.

In the Luyuan Job Market, one of the largest in northeast China, in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning Province, Qin is one of thousands of migrant farmer workers who come looking for work everyday.

Previously, the priority of the migrant workers' union, which set up the billboard in the market, was to help workers settle wage disputes.

"Now the problem is not payment defaults. It's unemployment," says Zhang Xuedong, head of the union branch.

The billboard has vacancies for chefs, most offering less than 1,200 yuan per month. Qin says it's not enough to support his family.

Tight Market

China is being squeezed by the global credit crunch and economic contraction. In southern Guandong Province alone, more than 2,400 companies closed their doors last year.

The central government estimates 20 million migrant workers have lost their jobs and returned home.

From the southern exporting towns and cities, the crisis quickly spread north, where the labor market has tightened.

After Qin went home to see his family during the Spring Festival, the most important Chinese holiday, he returned to Shenyang to be told he had been replaced by someone who was paid much less.

"I had thought it wouldn't be so hard to find a job, but times have changed," he says.

About 3,000 farmers and skilled workers had come to the Luyuan job market since February 2, Zhang Xuedong said.

In past years, most job seekers waited till the traditional Chinese Lantern Festival, which marks the end of Lunar New Year celebrations and fell on February 9 this year, to look for work.

The atmosphere in the market started to change last October, Zhang says.

"In good times, the parking lot was filled with cars. Nowadays, less than a quarter of the lot is occupied," she says.

Laborers sometimes search for weeks without a result. Many live in ramshackle buildings around the market so they can come early everyday.

Property owners in the neighborhood have prospered by setting up dormitories and renting beds to laborers at 10 yuan per night.

Chen Qingliang, 48, a local welder, has not worked since November."Anything will do," he says.

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