Last fall, Lu Haicheng became a statistic, one of an estimated 20 million to 30 million Chinese migrant workers thrown out of work when his factory, hit by global recession, shut down.
Today, he's another statistic – one of what Chinese authorities say is the more than 95 per cent of migrant workers who have found new jobs in a recovering economy. “I am not clear if the people who found jobs again are suffering with lower salaries. But for me, the conditions are better,” the 29-year-old said, as he left an early shift of painting in one of Beijing's many high-end office and housing developments.
Last fall, the factory in Jinjiang in southern Fujian province where Mr. Lu worked making aluminum window frames closed, forcing him to scramble for any job he could find. For a time, he and a friend did interior painting in Nanjing, several hours to the north – although for lower wages in dirty working conditions, and with meals and accommodation paid out of their own pockets. That work, too, dried up within weeks as building projects slowed.
But as the Chinese government poured money into the economy, frantically trying to stimulate growth, Mr. Lu – and thousands of other migrant workers – found his lot improving. He moved to Beijing, where a post-Olympics building boom continues despite a high vacancy rate, largely thanks to government spending on infrastructure and support for generous bank loans. He again found work painting in a development near the Workers' Stadium in eastern Beijing.
Today, Mr. Lu is making as much as he once made at the factory – 100 yuan a day (about $16), and the crisp, white, button-down shirt and pressed jeans he wears off the job are signs that he is again getting ahead.
“In a factory, we often worked overtime, but the work was cleaner and there were better conditions. Here it's dirtier, but we feel more freedom,” Mr. Lu said, carrying his dirty painting clothes in a plastic bag.
China's broader employment picture, however, is far from rosy. The unemployment rate has remained at 4.3 per cent in the first half of 2009 and while officials pledge to keep it under an official target of 4.6 per cent, state media have called this the highest level of unemployment since 1980.
“The global financial crisis has yet to bottom out,” Wang Yadong, a deputy director in China's Ministry of Human Resources, told a news conference recently. “A lot of companies in China are having a difficult time and there is still a great risk of unemployment.”
Migrant workers, who are not tallied in the official unemployment rate, are difficult to track. Their numbers are estimated at 150 million, and they form the backbone of the Chinese economy, building the roads, bridges and buildings that are the centrepieces of New China.
Officials say they believe that fewer than 3 per cent of the migrant workers who returned to the cities after the Chinese New Year holiday in February – or about 4.5 million people – are still looking for work.
It seems a promising development in China's efforts to keep its economy growing. What is less spoken of are the increasingly harsh conditions those migrant workers face in their new jobs.
Before the global recession, Chinese factories had begun to respond to pressure from the public, foreign companies and workers themselves to improve labour conditions. The downturn now means migrant workers are generally earning less money and working in more difficult jobs than before.
“From the beginning, I didn't feel migrant workers would have high unemployment, because they cannot afford to be unemployed. So they will take jobs, even if they have to accept lower wages,” said Cai Fang, a professor in the Institute of Population and Labour Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
