Since the coronavirus pandemic battered China's economy, tens of millions of urban and factory jobs have evaporated. Some workers and business owners have banded together to pressure companies or local governments for subsidies and payouts. But many of the newly unemployed have instead returned to their rural villages. China's vast countryside now serves as an unemployment sponge, soaking up floating migrant workers in temporary agricultural work on small family plots. "Say a factory used to hire 1,000 temporary workers; now, without new orders, these business owners can't afford to hire this many people," Yan Xiyun, a labor intermediary, told NPR. "The factory I usually go to in previous years could easily hire 2,000 people. Now there is scarcely anyone [on the factory floor]." Ten years ago, Yan left her own village near the small city of Zhumadian in Henan province for the first time and joined the migrant workforce. Now, she's a headhunter working on commission, placing thousands