Stay or Leave? Little or No Work Put New Immigrants in a Quandary

By Cao Jian, World Journal, December 31, 2008
Translated from Chinese by Austin Woerner

January 08, 2009

NEW YORK—(U.S. ASIAN WIRE)— With the economy in recession, Chinese immigrants are flocking back to China. But with even highly educated professionals struggling to find work back in the homeland, working-class Chinese are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to making that decision – stay or leave?

The financial crisis has taken the wind out of the economy’s sails, and Chinese restaurants across the country have seen their profits plummet. Laid-off restaurant workers are flooding back to New York to seek jobs, and employment agencies in Chinese communities are mobbed. Yet there is a serious shortage of job opportunities.

Chen Hui, a Fujianese immigrant seeking work at the Forsyth Street employment agency yesterday, said that he was fired from a Chinese restaurant in Tennessee in November and returned to New York, but still cannot find a job. Immigrants in such a predicament are ubiquitous, crowding the employment agencies of Chinatown.

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