The Government Work Report proposed cultivating and developing county-level economies, shoring up shortcomings in infrastructure and public services, and making county towns an important vehicle for new urbanization. In response, NPC deputies and CPPCC members offered suggestions on how to make county towns a warmer "home" for migrant workers.

　　The Nanjing Kuaiyijie Domestic Service Co., Ltd., where deputy Gao Huarui works, has 3,060 employees registered on the Ministry of Commerce's domestic service credit information platform, the vast majority of whom are migrant workers. In the past two years, more and more colleagues have bought homes and obtained household registration in the city, and the places where they settle down are mostly districts and counties around Nanjing, Jiangsu.

　　This year's Government Work Report proposed actively advancing new urbanization. It calls for cultivating and developing county-level economies, shoring up shortcomings in infrastructure and public services, and making county towns an important vehicle for new urbanization. Huang Shouhong, head of the Government Work Report drafting group and director of the Research Office of the State Council, said when interpreting the report that China's urbanization rate of permanent residents was 66.2 percent last year, and there is still great room for development and improvement in new urbanization. He said that this year, promoting the citizenization of rural migrant workers should be given a prominent position. On how to make county towns a warmer "home" for migrant workers, NPC deputies and CPPCC members attending the national two sessions actively offered suggestions.

　　Small county towns, big dreams

　　After years of hard work, buying a home and settling down in the city, and having a stable and secure life, is the dream of many migrant workers.

　　A practical reason why colleagues around deputy Gao Huarui chose to buy homes in districts and counties around Nanjing is that the cost of living in Nanjing is higher. Compared with housing prices of 20,000 to 30,000 yuan per square meter in Nanjing, prices in surrounding districts and counties are about one-third of that. Everyone's average income is about 4,000 to 5,000 yuan a month, so a county town is a more feasible choice.

　　Even for couriers, whom people regard as "highly paid," very few can buy homes and settle down in big cities. Deputy Wang Yong, branch manager of Hubei SF Express Co., Ltd., who has worked in the express delivery industry since 2014, told reporters that the high turnover rate of couriers has long been a pain point in the industry. Couriers face great labor intensity, and "many people leave after working for a while," Deputy Wang Yong said.

　　In addition to housing prices and the uncertainty of the "next stop," children's education is also an important consideration in choosing where to "settle down." At present, household registration restrictions have basically been lifted in cities with a permanent urban population of less than 3 million, which means that by settling down and obtaining household registration in a county town, children can enjoy the same educational resources as urban residents.

　　Deputy Liu Ting, section chief of the Health Care Business Marketing Department of Panasonic Appliances (China) Co., Ltd., said that compared with big cities, small and medium-sized cities represented by county towns have lower costs for children's education and elderly care, thus becoming an important factor attracting migrant workers to settle down.

　　In fact, as of now, 19 city clusters, including the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Chengdu-Chongqing area, have carried more than 75 percent of the country's population and have become the main form of China's new urbanization. At the same time, the cultivation of modern metropolitan areas is accelerating, and the development of large, medium, and small cities is becoming more coordinated.

　　Small county towns, big prospects

　　In the past, one of the advantages of big cities in attracting migrant workers was more job opportunities. Now, with urban-rural integration and coordinated regional development, small county towns also contain great hope, and the development of county-level economies has shown everyone more possibilities for development.

　　Deputy Liang Qianjuan, general manager of Longshang Manor Ecological Agriculture Co., Ltd., lives in Hui County, Longnan, Gansu, which has a permanent population of 189,200, including 85,000 urban residents. When migrant workers settle down in county towns, in addition to enjoying the benefit of their children attending nearby schools, they can also enjoy service policies such as employment and unemployment registration, registration and assistance for people with employment difficulties, and placement in public welfare jobs. People are highly motivated to settle in cities.

　　In 2013, Deputy Liang Qianjuan, who was working in Guangdong, resigned and returned to her hometown to start an e-commerce business. The following year, she founded her own online store, "Longshang Manor." Deputy Liang Qianjuan sold local agricultural specialties such as olive oil and walnuts across the country, helping more than 300 local farming households increase their incomes and become better off. Under her leadership, many local people returned home to start businesses. The local government guided development according to circumstances and focused on cultivating the e-commerce industry. At present, Hui County has 1,592 e-commerce entities of various types, with sales exceeding 600 million yuan in 2023 alone.

　　"Integrate the advancement of new urbanization with the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas organically." Deputy Liang Qianjuan believes that better leveraging the role of the short-video and livestreaming ecosystem in absorbing large-scale employment can create new job opportunities for ordinary people, and the short-video and livestreaming ecosystem should be encouraged to absorb large-scale employment.

　　Deputy Zhang Quanshou, Party branch secretary of Guaiziyang Village, Shangcai County, Henan Province, has also observed new changes in migrant worker employment. Now people born in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s have become the main body of migrant workers, but they do not choose jobs in electronics factories or on construction sites. The number of people working near home is increasing year by year. Some cities and counties have leading-industry industrial parks, townships have rural revitalization industrial parks, and villages have small specialty processing parks. Some people who originally worked away from home can now find employment while staying near home.

　　Previously, a relevant official of the National Development and Reform Commission said that China will accelerate the citizenization of rural migrant workers and coordinate the reform of the household registration system with the equalization of basic urban public services. It will promote the coordinated development of new industrialization and urbanization, enhance the industrial and population-carrying capacity of cities and towns, especially county towns, advance new urbanization with high quality, and provide strong support for Chinese-style modernization.

　　Small county towns, big services

　　In advancing new urbanization and shoring up shortcomings in public services, NPC deputies and CPPCC members brought forward many suggestions.

　　Deputy Cai Jiming, a professor at the School of Social Sciences of Tsinghua University, believes that it is necessary to accelerate the establishment and improvement of an urban housing security system for rural migrant workers and properly solve their housing problems. Against the background of the shift from the model of individuals working away from home to the model of whole-family migration, because housing is still linked to urban public services such as medical care and education, properly solving the housing problem will also help rural migrant workers reproduce their labor power and improve their children's labor skills. It will help improve labor quality and labor efficiency and, from another aspect, ease the difficulties of "labor shortages" and "recruitment difficulties."

　　Deputy Yang Juan, vice chairwoman of the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee of the Sichuan Provincial People's Congress, suggested allowing first-generation migrant workers returning home without pension insurance to take out insurance, with local governments providing certain subsidies according to their financial capacity; giving policy convenience for supplementary payment to migrant workers who have paid for less than 15 years and are willing to make supplementary payments; and including first-generation migrant workers who have lost the ability to work and have no one to care for them in the scope of regular social assistance.

　　Having worked at the grassroots level for a long time, Deputy Yuan Shu, Party working committee secretary of Hebin Subdistrict, Nanming District, Guiyang, Guizhou Province, has a real sense of migrant workers' needs in settling down in cities. She believes that to shore up shortcomings in public services and support migrant workers in finding jobs and starting businesses in cities, relevant government departments should "help them onto the horse and see them off for a stretch" for the entities they cultivate to employ and support migrant workers in starting businesses, and formulate a series of practical assistance measures. For example, relevant departments at the county and district levels should provide one-stop services for entrepreneurs in handling certificates and opening accounts; tailor multiple assistance policies and provide small-sum credit guarantees for entrepreneurs. In response to migrant workers' urgent difficulties and concerns and issues such as their children's schooling, governments at all levels should strengthen coordination and data linkage with education departments, use data means to relieve their worries about their children's schooling, and create an environment in which they can live and work in peace and contentment while starting businesses.

　　Liu Shangxi, a member of the CPPCC National Committee and president of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences, suggested that in terms of skill improvement, opportunities such as new occupation development, practical training, and job internships should be opened directly and without discrimination to all employment groups, so as to promote an organic fit between low-skilled workers and the development of new forms of employment and help them maintain the ability to change jobs again.