China’s greying migrant workforce stays home
Survey shows army of cheap labour that fuelled boom is getting older and choosier
The massive army of migrant workers that once fuelled an economic boom is getting old and has grown reluctant to take on jobs far from home, an official survey has found.
The average age of the migrant workforce is now 39, with the number of those who leave their hometowns for work in the cities falling 1.1 per cent last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics’ annual survey of migrant workers, released on Friday.
The size of China’s migrant workforce grew 1.5 per cent to 281.71 million at the end of last year, the report stated.
But those who left home for jobs decreased for the fifth consecutive year, with the number who went to cities dropping by more than 1.5 million.
Younger workers have also been slow to replace their older counterparts. Workers born after 1980 accounted for 49.7 per cent – less than half – of the total migrant workforce last year, according to the report.
The workforce’s average age of 39 was a slight increase from 38.6 the previous year.