中国正为一年一度的春运做准备，数以亿计的人乘汽车、飞机，尤其是火车返乡过年；但2026年2月中旬假期前的11月，农村事务部门罕见直白警告要“防止大规模”务工人员“滞留”乡村。一个60岁的贴砖工在南京干了10个月后因“没活了”提前1个月返乡，回到河南老家（距离约400公里），其月收入从几年前约9,000元降至5,000元，约下降44%，但仍打算节后返城。

与2008年金融危机后外出务工者集中返乡不同，这轮经济下行更像长期化：房地产疲弱压缩了吸纳大量务工者的建筑岗位，而农村“安全阀”也变弱，因为承包地经营权被流转的比例已从2008年不足10%升至如今接近40%。疫情早期的跨地流动限制曾让许多人在家乡被困数月几乎无工可做；在周口的就业服务点，工作人员称近1个月返乡人数激增（沿海出口工厂提前停工），可提供的多为送货等临时岗位。

内陆城镇承接产业（如湖北天门沿高速新建工厂与宿舍）带来机会，但吸纳能力有限，回流越多越会对当地工资形成下行压力，且本地收入低于广州等大城市并低于往年。约1.8亿外出农村劳动力中，跨省流动占比已从2014年的47%降至约十年后的38%（下降9个百分点），显示越来越多人选择离家更近并把家庭时间置于更高优先级，这一趋势对依赖高强度流动劳动力拉动增长的规划者并不友好。

China is gearing up for its annual lunar-new-year migration, with hundreds of millions traveling by car, plane, and especially train; however, in November the rural-affairs ministry bluntly warned to “prevent a large-scale” problem of migrants “sticking around” in home villages. A 60-year-old tiler who worked 10 months in Nanjing left about one month early to return 400 km to his Henan village because jobs dried up, and his monthly income fell from about 9,000 yuan to 5,000—roughly a 44% drop—though he still expects to go back after the mid-February holiday.

Unlike the mass return after the 2008 global financial crisis, this slowdown feels more permanent: property-market weakness is squeezing construction work, and the countryside is less of a safety valve because land-use rights have been leased out, rising from under 10% of rural households in 2008 to close to 40% today. Early covid travel restrictions trapped many migrants in hometowns for months with little work, and a Zhoukou job office says returnees have surged over the past month as coastal export factories closed early, but it can mostly offer temporary delivery-style gigs.

Inland industrial build-outs (such as new factories and dorms around Tianmen) are creating jobs, but local economies can absorb only so many workers, so heavier return flows also push wages downward, while pay remains lower than in big southern cities like Guangzhou and lower than in previous years. Among roughly 180 million rural migrants, the share crossing into other provinces has fallen from 47% in 2014 to 38% about a decade later (down 9 percentage points), indicating a shift toward staying closer to home and prioritizing family time—an uncomfortable trend for planners counting on highly mobile labor to drive growth.

Source: China fears a flood of unemployed workers in rural areas

Subtitle: Fading ambition may pose a bigger problem

Dateline: 1月 29, 2026 04:18 上午