Twenty-six million desperately poor rural Chinese are believed to be jobless after pinning their hopes on factory work that dried up because of the global economic slowdown, an official said yesterday, noting that widespread unemployment could threaten the country's social stability.
The figures were announced one day after Beijing warned of "possibly the toughest year" since the turn of the century, calling for development of agriculture and rural areas to offset the economic fallout. Though many Chinese cities have seen double-digit growth in recent years, the countryside has lagged far behind, forcing peasants to seek urban factory jobs churning out goods that are sold around the world.
But a recent Government survey showed that slightly more than 15 per cent of China's estimated 130 million migrant workers had returned to their hometowns and were unemployed, said Chen Xiwen, director of the Central Rural Work Leading Group, a central Government advisory body. A further five or six million new migrants entered the workforce each year, he added.
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