Millions of China’s Migrant Workers Returning to Rural Hometowns, Likely Due to Unemployment

A worker welds wheel hubs of baby carriages that will be exported at a factory in Hangzhou in China's eastern Zhejiang province on June 4, 2018. - China warned the US that any deals reached during ongoing trade talks would be void if Washington went ahead with imposing tariffs on Chinese goods, as the latest round of negotiations ended on June 3 in Beijing. -/AFP/Getty Images

China’s Ministry of Agriculture announced on Nov. 8 that there are currently 7.4 million migrant workers who are returning from working in urban metropolises to their home villages.

In recent years, millions of China’s rural residents—many of them from impoverished farming villages—have left their hometowns for the country’s big cities in search of better-paying jobs to support their families. China has approximately 300 million migrant workers.