Hubei migrant workers return to E China's Hangzhou

Six chartered buses carrying a total of 146 migrant workers from Enshi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture, Central China's Hubei province, arrived in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province on Thursday.

This marks the first batch of workers that Hangzhou has received from Hubei, the hardest-hit region in China by the novel coronavirus pandemic. All of them will return to their work posts as long as they have green health codes issued by Hubei province.

In China's battle against poverty, Hangzhou is designated to give assistance to Enshi and help people there lift themselves out of poverty. In past years, the eastern Chinese city has made efforts to offer job opportunities to poverty-stricken people from the autonomous prefecture.

Data from Hangzhou Human Resources and Social Security Department showed that by the end of 2019, a total of 5,986 people from Hubei living in poverty had found jobs in Hangzhou and 1,612 of them were from Enshi.

Hangzhou has been stepping up efforts to help tackle the shortage of labor in local companies and help migrant workers get back to their jobs with the aim of accelerating the resumption of production in the city in an orderly and safe manner.

A chartered train with nearly 300 workers from Guiyang, Southwest China's Guizhou province, reached Hangzhou on Feb 16, making it the country's first such train service for returning workers.

As early as February, Hangzhou government had started to talk with government departments in Enshi, the region Hangzhou has been offering helping hands to, about transporting workers back.

Officials in Hangzhou collected information about companies' demand for laborers and sent it to the Enshi Human Resources and Social Security Department, which helped contact people who were willing to go outside for work.

More than 22,000 jobs in Hangzhou companies have been reserved for migrant workers from Enshi, according to Hangzhou Human Resources and Social Security Department.