China Worries Unemployed Migrants Will be Trapped in the Countryside

China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) ordered officials to prevent unemployed rural migrants from becoming stranded in their hometowns. This order--alongside reports that village officials told returning migrants to stay away--was interpreted by many as a sign that China's sinking economy is stoking fears of rural unrest. Unemployed migrants milling around in the countryside are a nightmare for stability-obsessed officials. 

Chinese netizens noticed an order to prevent large numbers of returning migrants from becoming stranded in their hometowns (防止形成规模性返乡滞乡) in an article describing a MARA meeting held November 13, 2025 in an ethnic minority area in Yunnan Province focusing on training rural people in handicrafts as a strategy for addressing rural poverty (i.e. selling pots, baskets, and articles of clothing to generate income in remote areas populated by ethnic minorities). The final paragraph of the article published in Yunnan news media called for implementing an action plan to create jobs in the countryside to prevent jobless rural migrants from lingering in the countryside and returning to poverty. Employment assistance was also ordered for key counties targeted for revitalization, for areas where poor people have been resettled, and for disaster-stricken counties.

There are anecdotal reports that laid-off factory workers are returning to their rural hometowns on a large scale. For example, a short video on China's Douyin platform showed workers in a garment manufacturing district of Guangzhou boarding a bus, claiming that the workers were laid off and have no choice but to return to their home in Hubei Province.

Douyin video comments that workers are returning well before
the customary peak period that begins in December ahead of
the Lunar New Year holidays.

Another factoid circulating on the Chinese social media is a photo that claims to show a meeting where officials discussed using police to round up returned unmarried migrants and subject them to self-criticism and reeducation. Young, unmarried unemployed people are especially prone to create unrest--hence the focus on single returned migrants. Some returning migrants claim to have been prevented from returning home or urged to return to urban jobs. Chinese news media claimed that the photo was faked with photoshop and produced an unnamed worker in a Guizhou village who denied that the meeting took place. 

Photo purportedly of a meeting discussing "how to
deal with returned unmarried migrants"

Another article in State media argued that the order to "prevent large scale return to rural areas" was taken out of context and claimed officials are working to promote rural employment and prevent recurrence of poverty. 

There are many indications that factories are closing, and many workers have not been paid. Exports declined unexpectedly in October. The extent of the impact on migrant workers is hidden by Chinese officials while the veracity of anecdotal evidence is uncertain. China's official data reported last month that the number of rural migrants at the end of Q3 2025 was up 0.9% year-over-year and monthly earnings were up 2.4%. While these numbers are not that alarming in isolation, they are low compared to the go-go years. Growth in the migrant workforce has been erratic since 2015 when China had a stock market meltdown, and the property market bubble began to deflate. Official data show Q3 2025's 0.9% year-on-year growth in migrants is the lowest non-pandemic growth since 2018.

 

Calculated from National Bureau of Statistics.

China's countryside has been a reservoir of unskilled labor since the 1950s. Rural people living in poverty could easily be enticed to staff factories during boom times and sent back home during downturns. The household registration (hukou) system was installed to prevent rural migrants from settling permanently in cities, and the rural land system gave each family plots of land to tie them to their home village. This system gave rural migrants a means of subsistence when not needed in factories or construction sites and ensured they would not stay in cities to form urban slums. 

Rural China's role as a sponge to soak up excess labor in a downturn is no longer viable. Many rural migrants have no experience farming, and some have no land. Authorities have encouraged farm mechanization and turned over an increasing share of farming resources to companies. During earlier economic slowdowns news media ran articles inspiring rural women returning from factory work to take up hog farming. This is impossible now, because capital requirements and regulatory measures raise the threshold, and most individually run hog farms are losing money this year. Authorities are also coping with the problem of unemployed college graduates, as evidenced by a separate plan to encourage urban youth to start businesses in the countryside. 

In February 2025 State media encouraged college graduates and white-collar workers
to return to their villages to start live-streaming sales businesses. 

In a commentary on the topic Chinese news media personality Hu Xijin praised MARA's efforts at rural job creation, but he argued that only cities can create enough jobs to prevent returned migrants from becoming stranded in the countryside. Hu admonished cities for focusing on creating a modern and beautiful appearance while neglecting their responsibility to create jobs for "the vast rural workforce." 

A Chinese commentary on Reddit criticized the Chinese Communist Party's approach to the unemployed migrant issue by comparing it to addressing diarrhea by plugging the buttocks with tape and declaring the problem to be solved. The Reddit commentator surmised that the Party avoids tackling the root cause because it might expose the shortcomings of the system and raise questions about the "emperor's" responsibility.