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.
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.
They have used up their savings of 30,000 yuan and Zhang is now in debt, using one credit card to pay off another. There are no jobs there, and having spent the last of their savings while looking for work in the capital, going back penniless would be a bitter pill to swallow.In China, there are an estimated 280 million rural migrant workers, like Zhang. They have been, perhaps, the hardest-hit by the economic impact of the coronavirus, and many are excluded from unemployment insurance.
Zhang and his wife rent a cheap apartment a three-hour bus ride from Beijing proper, where he spends every day wandering through old haunts looking for a job.He reckoned restaurant wages have slumped by a third, and if he were lucky enough to find a job he would likely be paid only around 4,000 yuan per month.New policies call for migrant workers to be given equal access to employment services, and expanded subsistence allowances for those who return home.
There has not been any obvious increase in worker protests yet, but judging by postings on social media “discontent is growing,” said Geoff Crothall, of China Labour Bulletin.
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