BACK HOME: Migrant workers from central China's Anhui Province come back home and work in a local factory in September 2009. Anhui started the project of supporting local factories as of June 2008 and attracted more than 1,000 migrant workers to return home (LI JIAN)

In September 2009, 28-year-old Wu Tao packed his bags in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province and moved back to Jiangxi Province. Wu, a migrant worker who had been employed at a factory for almost 10 years, was going home.

"Staying away was not my long-term plan since my child is almost ready to begin school," said Wu, who plans to open a restaurant in his hometown and stay with his family.

He left just as demand for labor started to peak at many Dongguan factories, a result of the business recovery accompanying many newly placed orders from foreign countries.

But Wu is not alone in deciding to go back home. By the end of 2008, many migrant workers had left the cities where they worked after being laid off due to the global crisis. Wu felt lucky at that point that he still had a job, but a year later he left on his own accord.

"We thought it would be very easy to get workers to come back since so many went home due to the crisis," said Zheng Ziqiang, a Dongguan toy company manager. "But to our surprise, it turned out to be a difficult task. Some of the factories even had to cancel orders due to a lack of workers."

The shortage of migrant workers began in April this year, said Wang Liang, a human resources manager at the Dongguan Shili Electronics Factory. Wang said the company has been trying to hire new workers since April but cannot fill its demand.

Where did the workers go?

But a lack of supply to meet the labor demand did not translate into a pay raise for Wu. Besides, he said, the increasing orders are the result of factories ramping up production of toys and gifts for the Christmas season. He believes when Christmas passes, the factories will fire their employees again.

He said his restaurant could generate as much as the 2,000 yuan ($293) a month he made at the factory and that being his own boss could offer a number of other benefits, including more stability.

"A low salary and instability might be the two main reasons why migrant workers go back home," said Liu Kaiming, Director of the Shenzhen Institute of Contemporary Observation in Guangdong Province. "Migrant workers now are choosing to go for either higher-paid or more stable jobs."

A Chinese National Bureau of Statistics survey on migrant worker employment during the first half of 2009 showed that 29 percent of migrants quit their jobs due to low salaries.

Human resources manager Ji Yongxia traveled all the way from north China's Tianjin Municipality to southwest Sichuan Province in an attempt to hire 300 migrant workers, but she succeeded in corralling only 80.

"They offer only 1,600 yuan ($234) or 1,700 yuan ($249) per month; it is not competitive at all," said one township leader in Zhusong, Sichuan Province.

In the same town, however, a newly opened shoe factory easily hired 300 workers without creating a single advertisement.

"Workers just came to me," said factory owner Zhang Lizhen, who had been working in Dongguan for 18 years before coming back home in 2008 to start her own factory. "There are many workers who used to work in south China shoe factories and came back last year. There is no difficulty for me to find enough workers who have shoe-making skills."

Liu Haijuan, one of Zhang's workers, said, "The salary here is almost the same as that in Dongguan, and I can take care of my child by myself here. I can also go back home for lunch. It is much better than moving to other places for work."

Li Yuming, Director of the Jintang Labor and Social Security Bureau, said it is understandable to see the flow of migrant labor reverse.

"Many workers who have left their homes to work somewhere else for quite a long time want to come back home to take care of their families. And since many of them do not have insurance, they have come to realize that the money they earn somewhere else might not even be enough in case they need to be treated for some future disease they might get in the factory."

Li said that among the 60,000 workers who came back home last year to Jintang, 10,000 picked up jobs in township factories while 50,000 migrated again to places in the north and west instead of swarming to southern factories, as they did in previous years. Sichuan also absorbed many construction workers due to reconstruction efforts after the May 12 earthquake. Construction workers there can earn at least 2,000 yuan ($294) a month, and the ones with higher skills can earn as much as 5,000 yuan ($732) per month.

"Migrant workers now have more choices," said Li. "Employers need to change their old ideas on migrant workers and do things to attract them."