Fang Lan: Employment of Migrant Workers Is Essential for Poverty Alleviation

“Governments at all levels, communities and even organizations offering ‘pairing-up assistance’ are all working hard to help migrant workers get back to work in an orderly manner.”

the potential to affect the overall economic situation. Fang Lan, a deputy to the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, and vice president of the Northwest Institute of Historical Environment and Socio-economic Development of Shaanxi Normal University, pays close attention to the impact of the outbreak on rural areas in China.

This year is the final year for China to accomplish the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. Fang believes that the re-employment of migrant workers is extremely important for the battle against poverty. “The resumption of production, especially for downstream enterprises, directly determines whether migrant workers will obtain jobs and incomes.”

The total number of migrant workers in China has reached 290 million, 170 million of whom work in places other than home, and about 75 million of whom are trans-provincial laborers. The epidemic breaks the flow of migrant workers and directly cuts off their sources of income.

Employment has a direct bearing on people’s livelihoods. At a symposium on securing a decisive victory in poverty alleviation, Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, stressed that China’s battle against poverty is in the final push, and that the country must consolidate and advance the results on the basis of poverty reduction efforts, stabilize employment of migrant workers, and effectively prevent migrant workers from losing their jobs and falling back into poverty due to the negative effects of the epidemic.

“Governments at all levels, communities and even organizations offering ‘pairing-up assistance’ are all working hard to help migrant workers get back to work in an orderly manner,” said Fang.

China’s State Council has rolled out concrete measures to facilitate non-local employment, local or nearby employment, and employment of impoverished laborers amid the

epidemic. The government provided “point-to-point” transportation services for migrant workers to help them return to work in an orderly manner. As of May 18, this practice had helped 6.02 million migrant workers from rural areas get back to their posts, 1.52 million of whom were impoverished people, accounting for 25.2 percent of the total.

The National Development and Reform Commission announced on May 24 that 3.54 million new urban jobs were created and 90 percent of migrant workers had already returned to their workplaces from January to April.

Fang noted that in the process of poverty alleviation it will be better if every rural household has a breadwinner, no matter whether he or she is working outside or in a local township enterprise. Only by doing so can rural households have more stable incomes despite the low earnings from crop cultivation.

Fang is an expert in the research of agricultural production in northwestern China and has been dedicated to the studies of Chinese agriculture for many years. She formerly worked for Shaanxi Provincial Development and Reform Commission.

Fang called for attention to specialized farms apart from individual farmers because large-scale farms were more affected by the epidemic. Given the long cycle, low profitablity, and high risk of agricultural production, as well as various negative factors triggered by the epidemic, it is difficult for specialized farms to make a quick turnaround. She added that it is imperative to improve the risk tolerance capacity and overall competitiveness of specialized farms. “Farmers can work on specialized farms if they cannot manage to return to work in cities. The development of specialized farms can absorb nearby laborers and provide them with job opportunities without the need to leave their hometowns.”

In addition, Fang said that the epidemic didn’t have too much impact on spring plowing in most parts of the country. “It will probably not be a problem to achieve a high grain yield this summer.”