About 11 million rural migrants are currently seeking employment in China’s cities, according a new survey by the National Bureau of Statistics. The survey indicates that despite a massive government effort to re-employ returning migrants in their home towns; about half of those still unemployed have already gone back to the cities to look for work.

The survey of 68,000 rural households in 7,100 villages across the country estimated that the total number of rural workers not engaged in agriculture was about 225 million, with 141 million employed outside their home town. About 50 percent of these rural migrant workers (70 million) returned home before the Lunar New Year Holiday, and over 80 percent of those (56 million) had now returned to the cities. Around 45 million migrants had already found work, leaving 11 million still unemployed, the survey said.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that most of those who have gone back to the cities are young and relatively independent, with few ties to the countryside. Older migrants with stronger roots in the countryside, and who have families to support, have tended to stay in their home towns where living costs are lower until they are sure of securing employment in the city.

Of the estimated 14 million unemployed who stayed behind in their home towns, the National Bureau of Statistics reported that some had found work or set up their own business while others remained unemployed. Separately, the report stated that 23 million returnees were currently seeking reemployment, indicating that some 12 million of those who had stayed in their home towns were yet to find a job.

The vast majority, 71 percent, of the rural migrants who returned home in 2008, did so during the final quarter of the year, reflecting the mass layoffs that ensued in the wake of the global economic crisis - 18 cent returned in October, 28 percent in November and 25 percent in December, compared with just 8.5 percent for the whole of the second quarter of 2008.

Nearly two thirds, 62.4 percent, of all returning migrants were employed in the eastern provinces, with 24.6 percent working in Guangdong. As expected, export orientated manufacturing and construction were the two hardest hit sectors, with 36 percent of returning migrants employed in manufacturing, and 28 percent in construction. 

The survey estimated that 5.8 percent of returning workers were owed wages, a figure that seems remarkably low given the fact that most layoffs were in manufacturing and construction, the two areas most commonly affected by wage arrears.