IN-DEPTH: Job Prospects for China’s Rural Migrant Workers Worsen as Labor-Intensive Industries Decline

Migrant workers standing near signs advertising their skills as they wait by a street to be hired in Shenyang, in northeastern China's Liaoning Province on Feb. 6, 2023. STR/AFP via Getty Images

China’s labor-intensive industries were hit hard by extreme zero-COVID measures, with business woes continuing this year, leaving the employment outlook bleak for rural migrant workers.

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping on April 29 stressed in a Central Political Bureau economic meeting of the need to “expand employment channels”.