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Wednesday 17 December 2008
Returning Migrant Workers Put Strain on Home Provinces
Swarms of migrant workers driven back home by the economic downturn in eastern provinces are putting huge social and employment pressure on the governments in their hometowns.
Returning Migrant Workers Put Strain on Home Provinces
Woods Lee 17 December 2008
Swarms of migrant workers driven back home by the economic downturn in eastern provinces are putting huge social and employment pressure on the governments in their hometowns.
In Yunnan province authorities are not only facing the tough task of creating jobs for 510,000 returned workers, but are also struggling to secure enough food to feed the swelling population in some areas, according to the provincial government’s website.
“The hundreds of thousands of returned rural workers have increased grain consumption by the local population by 500,000 tonnes per day, and we are feeling the strain of preparing enough rice in the bowl,” Liu Guoquan, director of Zhaotong’s Rural Human Resources Development Office, told fellow officials at a provincial meeting to discuss the crisis.
The annual grain output in Zhaotong had fallen well short of local demand and the authorities had to import more from other provinces to make ends meet, the website quoted Mr. Liu as saying.
Mainland businesses, especially those in the Yangtze and Pearl River Delta areas, have started to feel the crisis bite. Thousands of small and medium-sized companies cut their payrolls or simply closed as overseas orders shrank rapidly.
Waves of jobless rural migrant workers began to head home as early as October, three months before the traditional Lunar New Year break.
Pressure on grain supplies eased as farmers migrated for work but had abruptly increased as they headed back home.
Mr. Liu said that by the end of this month 330,000, or 30 percent, of Zhaotong’s labourers working outside the city would come back from coastal areas. That figure would rise to more than half a million by May if the impact of the global financial crisis continued to be felt.
Mr. Liu said the early return would reduce the collective annual income of those workers by 540 million yuan (HK$611.4 million), or about 1,000 yuan a year per rural migrant worker.
The influx is also a headache for authorities in Kunming and Qujing, two other major sources of migrant workers.
Yunnan Agriculture Department official Wang Changming was quoted by the website as saying that by the Lunar New Year late next month, more migrant labourers were expected to return home, and fewer were expected to go back to work at the end of the holiday.
Authorities in Yunnan are working to create more jobs to cushion the social impact of the waves of returning rural labourers.
But the limited education and the lack of skills of most rural migrant workers are impeding re-employment efforts.
About 95 per cent of the returned migrant workers in Zhaotong, Kunming and Qujing never completed secondary school, and most do not have any skills, according to the government website. Local governments are also trying to arrange for rural labourers to work overseas, but red tape is strangling the process.
Analysts forecast that the re- employment situation in provinces with big rural populations, such as Henan, Hubei, Hunan and Sichuan will be even grimmer, forcing local governments to move faster to find ways to forestall any threat of social instability.
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said in a report on Monday that around 4 million, or nearly 3 per cent, of rural migrant workers had returned home by last month.
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Returning Migrant Workers Put Strain on Home Provinces
Woods Lee
17 December 2008
Swarms of migrant workers driven back home by the economic downturn in eastern provinces are putting huge social and employment pressure on the governments in their hometowns.
In Yunnan province authorities are not only facing the tough task of creating jobs for 510,000 returned workers, but are also struggling to secure enough food to feed the swelling population in some areas, according to the provincial government’s website.
“The hundreds of thousands of returned rural workers have increased grain consumption by the local population by 500,000 tonnes per day, and we are feeling the strain of preparing enough rice in the bowl,” Liu Guoquan, director of Zhaotong’s Rural Human Resources Development Office, told fellow officials at a provincial meeting to discuss the crisis.
The annual grain output in Zhaotong had fallen well short of local demand and the authorities had to import more from other provinces to make ends meet, the website quoted Mr. Liu as saying.
Mainland businesses, especially those in the Yangtze and Pearl River Delta areas, have started to feel the crisis bite. Thousands of small and medium-sized companies cut their payrolls or simply closed as overseas orders shrank rapidly.
Waves of jobless rural migrant workers began to head home as early as October, three months before the traditional Lunar New Year break.
Pressure on grain supplies eased as farmers migrated for work but had abruptly increased as they headed back home.
Mr. Liu said that by the end of this month 330,000, or 30 percent, of Zhaotong’s labourers working outside the city would come back from coastal areas. That figure would rise to more than half a million by May if the impact of the global financial crisis continued to be felt.
Mr. Liu said the early return would reduce the collective annual income of those workers by 540 million yuan (HK$611.4 million), or about 1,000 yuan a year per rural migrant worker.
The influx is also a headache for authorities in Kunming and Qujing, two other major sources of migrant workers.
Yunnan Agriculture Department official Wang Changming was quoted by the website as saying that by the Lunar New Year late next month, more migrant labourers were expected to return home, and fewer were expected to go back to work at the end of the holiday.
Authorities in Yunnan are working to create more jobs to cushion the social impact of the waves of returning rural labourers.
But the limited education and the lack of skills of most rural migrant workers are impeding re-employment efforts.
About 95 per cent of the returned migrant workers in Zhaotong, Kunming and Qujing never completed secondary school, and most do not have any skills, according to the government website. Local governments are also trying to arrange for rural labourers to work overseas, but red tape is strangling the process.
Analysts forecast that the re- employment situation in provinces with big rural populations, such as Henan, Hubei, Hunan and Sichuan will be even grimmer, forcing local governments to move faster to find ways to forestall any threat of social instability.
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said in a report on Monday that around 4 million, or nearly 3 per cent, of rural migrant workers had returned home by last month.
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