Hong Kong’s Wen Wei Po newspaper reported that since June, many export enterprises in the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta and coastal areas have shut down. Many large- and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises have drastically slowed their rate of expansion. As a result, a large number of migrant workers have been laid off.
According to incomplete statistics, nearly 10 million of the 210-million migrant work force have returned to their hometown ahead of schedule during the second half of this year. 20 percent of the migrant workers from Hunan, Henan, Jiangxi and Sichuan provinces have returned to those provinces.
In recent month, the railway stations in Hefei, Chongqing, Wuhan, Changsha, Nanjing, and Nanchang cities have been packed with passengers. Most of them are migrant workers returning home ahead of time for the Chinese New Year.
Statistics of Guangzhou Railway Station showed that between October 11 and 27, the number of travelers had increased by 128,000 people, compared to the same period last year.
A staff member said that this year is particularly unusual. There are 90,000 to 130,000 passengers every day. Ther number of passengers is steadily increasing, especially those heading towards the Sichuan, Chongqing, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang regions.
A hawker who sells lunch boxes on the square in front of Guangzhou Railway Station said that his business has been better every day since the late October. In November, he sold more than twice as many lunch boxes as during the same period last year.
News from Zhejiang pointed out that of the 5,000,000 migrant workers from Zhejiang, 1,000,000 have returned home ahead of schedule. Since September, railway stations in Ningbo, Wenzhou, and Jinhua, etc, have seen masses of people. Laid-off workers, unable to find new jobs, sleep on the ground around the stations.
People in charge of Jinhua Railway Station, Zhejiang Province said that the number of passengers has increased 20 percent every day since late October, compared to last year. In Ningbo City, passengers have to buy tickets at least 4 days ahead of the departure date to secure seats.
A migrant worker from Guiyang went to Ouhai region, Wenzhou to work in a shoe factory last Chinese New Year. “Now the factory has been closed down. More than 30 workers and another 60 people from my hometown have gone back home,” he said. “But we don’t own any land in our hometown now, so we don’t know what to do now.”
A conservative estimate made by the Wenzhou Economic and Trade Commission pointed out that 8 percent of small and medium enterprises in Wenzhou City have closed down.
Experts predicted that with the continuing deterioration of the global financial environment, more manufacturing enterprises will be forced to close, and more workers will be left jobless and homeless. These shutdowns will also affect related industries, spreading the problem further.
Statistics from the Chinese State Development and Reform Commission showed that 67,000 small- and medium-sized businesses closed down in the first half of this year. For example, nearly 50 Hong Kong companies in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) went bankrupt in early October.
The Chairman of Federation of Hong Kong Industries, Clement Chen, said that among the 70,000 Hong Kong businesses in the PRD, as many as one quarter of them, 17,500, might be closed down by the end of this year, leaving 875,000 people without work.
Information from Dongguan Foreign Investment Association showed that overall industrial operating costs have increased by about 30 to 40 percent, while overall profits have dropped 20 to 25 percent. Customers’ orders in the fourth quarter of this year dropped 15 to 25 percent, compared to the same period last year. Customers’ orders for this period next year are predicted to be 30 to 40 percent fewer than this year’s.
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