Rural Migrants Suffer Most Amid China’s Unemployment Misery

Rural Migrants Suffer Most Amid China’s Unemployment Misery
Migrant worker Zhang Jianpeng, 28, and his wife Zhang Ruirui, 26, on May 13, 2020. Tingshu Wang/ Reuters
Reuters
Updated:

BEIJING—Migrant workers Zhang Jianpeng and his wife returned to Beijing in late April, after nearly three months in lockdown at their home village in northern Shanxi province waiting for China’s COVID-19 epidemic to subside.

By the time they got back to the city, the restaurant where they had both worked had long since closed, and neither has been able to find a new job.