Time is like water, fleeting, unknowingly, 2021 has passed more than half, the next year will end in less than two months. But many people are still working just to have a good New Year, and for those who work outside the country, they need to save money for the New Year.

Unexpectedly, this year’s Spring Festival travel rush is different from previous years. In the past, the Spring Festival travel rush is usually around the Spring Festival, or about half a month earlier, but this year’s Spring Festival travel rush seems to have moved forward. Now some people are returning home.

Why does this happen? Migrant workers are already returning to their hometowns in large numbers in many places, three months earlier than before. More people returning to their hometowns say they will not be able to go out to work, so can they continue to make money?

By comparing data, it is found that in 2020, the total number of migrant workers in China is more than 5 million less than the previous year. It can be seen that people’s thinking about migrant work has begun to change, and this situation has advantages and disadvantages. Let’s take a look. What is the cause?

The first reason is that many traditional factories in China have begun to transform and upgrade. In the past, most of the workshops and factories that needed workers in China were labor-intensive industries, so there was a great demand for migrant workers. However, with the development of science and technology and the change of people’s consumption concept, now many factories in China have begun to transform, no longer need too much labor, but to automatic production.

Large factories, for example, are starting to use robots instead of people. However, the consequence of the transformation is that more people face unemployment, and with the development of e-commerce platforms, the brick-and-mortar store economy will not be able to grow. For those migrant workers, it’s back home, because most of them have little knowledge and can only earn money by physical strength.

As the Spring Festival approaches, many high-polluting enterprises close down, and as a result, farmers have no reason to stay in big cities. They choose to work in other industries or return to their hometowns to develop other jobs. However, now the state is paying more and more attention to this situation, so some policies have been introduced to encourage rural workers to return to their hometown to develop employment.

The second reason is that with the development of economy, prices are rising faster and faster, and the living cost of migrant workers is getting higher and higher. We can see that the national pension for retirees has increased for 17 consecutive years, all because of the rising cost of living.

Only in this way can the life of the elderly be guaranteed. But this will not solve the problem of migrant workers, who have no retirement, no subsidies, and higher prices, the cost of living is getting higher. The monthly income may not be able to support the expenses of themselves and their children and parents, so they choose to return to their hometown and find a new job.

The third reason is that the working life of migrant workers has come to an end, and many of them are approaching the retirement age. Now, many people born in their 60s and 70s have reached the retirement age, and even before they reach the age, there are fewer and fewer jobs for them to work. When people get old, their physical quality declines and they cannot continue to work normally, most of them choose to return to their hometown for retirement.

The last reason is related to national policies, which encourage people to go back to their hometown to start businesses and promote the economic development of their hometown. For many migrant workers, it is a rare opportunity to start their own business without doing manual work in workshops or construction sites. It is a good opportunity and the income is not necessarily lower than that in big cities.

Therefore, taking these four reasons into consideration, it is not really a bad thing that the upsurge of returning home is in advance. It may be an inevitable trend of social development.