China says 20 million migrant workers have lost their jobs during the economic downturn – three times greater than had been suggested previously.

A survey carried out in 15 provinces suggests around 15% of the total migrant labour pool is now unemployed.

Each year between five and seven million new workers from rural areas come to China’s biggest cities looking for work.

They join a migrant worker labour pool estimated at around 130 million.

There are fears that large numbers of unemployed workers could lead to social unrest.

BBC

The numbers are huge, but in China they are still a small percentage of the overall workforce. That is, if the reports are accurate and not understated. The potential for a civil backlash is growing.

Nearly 5 million migrant workers had returned home by the end of November, accounting for 5.4 percent of rural migrant workers, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said.

Many of them had lost their jobs as the global financial crisis took its toll across the country.

The 4.85 million migrant workers were mainly from 10 provinces including Sichuan, Hebei, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan.

Meanwhile, employers in the provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Fujian and Shandong, as well as Shanghai, have sacked 2.45 million people, accounting for 5.2 percent of the workforce in these areas, the ministry said.

Shanghai Daily

It is fair to say that most of the incidents of unrest in the Chinese population are never reported. It is difficult to estimate that number but it is safe to say that those reported have increased in number over the last several years. unrest in the population is one of the signs of the coming collapse of the current government.

Chinese leaders have finally admitted that the country is facing a “grim” situation on the employment front owing to the global economic crisis. An official survey has shown that demand for labour has fallen 5.5% in the third quarter of this year across 84 different cities.

Yin Weimin, head of the ministry of human resources said that labour discontent was a “top concern” of the government as the employment situation has turned “grim”.

The government is clearly worried that unrest among jobless workers would result in protest demonstrations and unruly scenes. The past weeks have seen strikes by taxi drivers in four cities and a workers’ riot at the party headquarters in Gansu province.

China has nearly 150 million migrant workers, who have left their rural homes in central and west China to work in the factories of South China. The extent of unemployment caused in factories cutting back production following loss of export orders is still not known. But the number might prove to be big enough to cause social tension, sources said.

Times of India