To stay or to go out again -- Chinese migrant workers strive for a living back home

Source: Xinhua | 02-23-2009 15:32

CHONGQING, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) -- Zheng Xiaogang did not get on the train for Guangzhou after the Chinese Lunar New Year holidays this year, as he had in years past. Now, in Zheng's eyes, Guangzhou, the capital of south China's manufacture-dominant Guangdong Province, has lost some of its luster.

After he failed to find a job since the electroplate factory he worked in for five years closed last October, Zheng returned home to the countryside of Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.

"The economic situations there is poor, so job opportunities must be scarce," said Zheng, 29. Now Zheng is a cook in a restaurant in downtown Chongqing. The 1,200-yuan (176 U.S. dollars) salary is only two thirds of what he earned in Guangzhou.

In order to earn their bread, millions of Chinese migrant workers who, like Zheng, have lost their jobs and returned home, are debating whether or not to go out again or to stay at home.

As the financial crunch evaporates global demand of China's toys, shoes and other commodities, a great deal of export-oriented factories closed or cut their outputs, leaving millions of migrant workers jobless and pushing them back home to the central and western countryside.