20 million Chinese migrant workers have lost their jobs

In the past months, about 70,000 factories nationwide in China have closed. Beijing official Chen Xiwen estimates about 20 million migrant workers have lost jobs. Tens of thousands of villages in the countryside depend on migrant workers' income.

China analysts say the spike in unemployment has caught China off guard. "The central government is now telling local governments to provide help and job training, re-employment," says Wenran Jiang, a political science professor and China expert at Canada's University of Alberta.

Some analysts have suggested that a "rural revolution" is imminent amid the economic turmoil. However, Wenran Jiang says such talk is premature. But he also says the central government must do more in the coming months. So villagers who lost factory jobs have few choices except go back to farming. But it is not easy.

Farming feeds people but brings little cash. Millions of the jobless are second-generation migrant workers, young people who grew up in cities.

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