Huang Xiaohui, head of Ganggang village in the Xiangxi Tujia-Miao autonomous prefecture, Hunan province, rustled through a stack of villagers' employment profiles, searching for errors, such as blank spaces and missing digits in phone or ID numbers.
He noted them down on a piece of paper and double-checked with the residents before uploading the accurate information to the online database for the Labor Assistance Cooperation Initiative - a government-led pilot program that helps impoverished rural residents find work.
Accurate information and identification are the crucial factors in targeted poverty alleviation efforts. "Without knowing the exact figures, we would be steering blind," said Kuang Zoufei, Xiangxi's deputy chief.
However, collecting and managing big data requires dedicated staff and resources, both of which are lacking in China's impoverished regions. Moreover, migrant workers are constantly moving, making it difficult to keep track of them.
"The system is inanimate, but humans are alive. We need a more flexible and responsive approach if we want to keep the system up to date," Huang said.
According to Kuang, in addition to data management, job negotiations and employment stability are the main challenges facing the pilot program.
Most impoverished rural workers are older, less educated and less healthy than the average migrant worker, making job negotiations particularly difficult.
"These people usually end up in labor-intensive jobs, but some companies believe their physical disadvantages may lower the overall efficiency of the production line," said Ling Hongyan, a human resources manager for Yaoqun Industry, a shoe manufacturer in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.
To make rural workers more appealing in the job market, local governments ramped up professional training programs and offered a range of incentives to encourage companies to hire them.
In Shenzhen, once a worker has been employed and made social security payments for nine months, the government will cover their social security payments for the next three years and provide the companies with a subsidy of 1,000 yuan ($667) per worker. Companies that participate in the pilot program will also receive honorary plaques and awards for their contribution to poverty relief.
In addition to providing more extensive training and post-employment services, the government also offers loans for startups in impoverished villages and financial aid packages for middle and high school dropouts.
