WHATEVER the uncertainties as jobs vanish for China's migrant workers, two things seem clear: they will become neither rebels nor farmers. Officials estimate that 20 million rural migrants are already out of work, fuelling fears that idle, frustrated young men will turn to protest and sow instability that could throw China's economy badly off course. The global financial crisis has sent Chinese growth tumbling to below 8 percent, a level widely regarded as a minimum for China to create enough jobs for those entering the workforce. A key plank of the government's strategy to mitigate the threats posed by job losses has been to encourage the unemployed to return to the countryside, where incomes are low but most have a piece of land to call their own and keep themselves fed. A few weeks into peak job-hunting season after Chinese New Year, the back-to-the-farm plan has come up short. But Beijing's protest nightmare is not becoming a reality. In Henan, a central province that is the country's biggest source of migrants, local authorities reckon that up to 80 percent of labourers are once again on city streets looking for work. Apart from sporadic bursts of anger, the vast majority of migrants are instead resigning themselves to a much more prosaic fate of lower wages and fewer work hours. “Finding a job is not a problem. It's finding a satisfactory one that's tough,” Gao Lei, 24, a ruddy-faced man shopping around his skills as a truck driver at a job fair in Henan's provincial capital, Zhengzhou. Young crowds swarmed the municipal office where toy makers, plastic factories, real estate developers and construction companies set up tables, some offering glossy pamphlets, many just displaying hand-painted signs. “There definitely are jobs out there but not as many as last year and pay is lower,” Gao said. “But rural conditions are worse, so it's still better to be here.” Village limits To be fair, the government's intention was not simply to get migrants tilling the soil again, but rather to encourage them to create their own businesses in rural areas. Henan has pledged 30 million yuan ($4.4 million) to train would-be entrepreneurs and a further 30 million yuan in low-interest loans for start-ups. Other provinces that produce large numbers of migrants, such as Sichuan and Anhui, have also promised similar assistance. “The best case scenario is that migrants who have skills and know-how learned in factories can bring these back to their villages,” said Linda Yueh, an economist at Oxford University. But she added: “When you have a more marketized economy, the government cannot just enact policy by dictate – tell people to start firms and tell firms to produce and employ people.” The limits of the government's power to spark rural enterprise are evident in the villages of low brick homes and stamp-sized farms just outside Zhengzhou. A few restaurants and building-material shops are dotted along the dusty roads, but the villages are shorn of the 20- and 30-year-olds who could drive consumption and start businesses. In a self-perpetuating cycle, they leave the countryside because of a lack of opportunity, and their departure strips the countryside of its best hope. Yan Li, 22, is a rare exception. She runs a car repair shop that she and her husband took over from his parents. “During the harvest it can be a constant rush,” she said, watching as her husband worked on a neighbour's three-wheel tractor. “But even then, there are days when there's absolutely nothing. And we're completely closed through the winter.” Quiet cities Workers protested against low pay late last year outside a series of factories in China's export hub of Guangdong, portending a year of disputes and rancour. Top Chinese leaders followed with unusually blunt warnings about the potential for more instability, the government's biggest worry, as the economy slowed further. But what has been striking about 2009 so far has been the relative quiet on city streets. An important part of the explanation lies in the nature of the migrant workforce. Compared with the overhaul of state-owned firms a decade ago that saw thousands of protests by laid-off workers, the current economic downturn is less of a shock. “Migrants have many years' experience of working in cities, returning to the countryside annually for New Year and then looking for work again in cities, so they are more capable of coping with market changes,” said Zhuang Jian, a senior economist in the Beijing office of the Asian Development Bank. The government also deserves credit. Although its 4 trillion yuan stimulus programme has been criticized for focusing on infrastructure investment at the expense of promoting consumption, it is at least funding projects that are perfectly in line with migrants' skill levels. “They can move from the factory floor to building roads,” Yueh said. And there has also been a rally-around-the-flag effect as Beijing persuades business to play its part in maintaining stability and do whatever it takes to avoid mass firings. Lower wages and weakened labour protection may rankle workers, but officials believe these may be the least bad and most expedient ways to support them, especially as unemployment and welfare benefits are woefully inadequate. With an intensity verging on patriotic fervour, Zhang Wei, head of a cosmetics company in Zhengzhou, said it was his duty to expand his sales force even as the market slumps. “The gap between rich and poor is our country's biggest challenge and it could get worse with this crisis,” Zhang said. “Our company will play a role in absorbing some of the poorest, those workers with basic skills coming back from factories.”
