Despite the severe shortage of jobs in the Pearl River Delta, Shangdong-based Qilu Evening News says rural migrant workers are finding it hard to return to their hometowns for work.

It says a large number of factory closures and layoffs have occurred in Pearl River Delta in the wake of the global financial crisis. But rural migrant workers rendered jobless are still not willing to return to the countryside, even though factories there are in dire need of manpower.

The workers believe they can get better opportunities in the Pearl River Delta than in their hometowns, the same idea as college graduates who prefer a temporary job in big cities to a stable job in small or medium-sized towns.

The article says the labourers should not be classed as "migrants". They live and work in the Pearl River Delta and have accepted the region as their home, which explains why they don't leave.