On the evening of October 13, 2008, 22-year-old Fang Chen (alias) received a text message on her cell phone: "New orders came in. Production starts tomorrow!" She was so excited that night that she hardly slept.

A native of Hunan province, Chen had been working in Guangdong province for four years. She works at a plastics toy factory as a "production team leader," which means her monthly salary is 100 yuan [$15] higher than the average worker's.

Chen had been waiting for work. Due to the lack of business, production was off and on. By early October, the 60-person factory had lost half of its workforce.

On October 14, Chen went to the factory early and worked long hours. She returned to her shared dorm after 10 p.m., feeling exhausted but happy.

Two busy weeks passed, orders were finished, and Chen, again, had no work to do.

She used to make 1,300 yuan [$190] a month when she worked 10 hours a day. After deducting living expenses, she managed to put 300 yuan [$44] into savings every month. Now the work has been few and far between, pay has shrunk. Chen made less than 1,000 yuan [$146] last month, which means she needed to tap into her savings just to cover day-to-day living.

Chen couldn't afford to stick around for long. And she didn't.

On November 3, Chen left the factory. She saw the vicious circle beating up smaller toy makers: less business lead to loss of workers, and a smaller workforce further limited the chance of getting large orders.

Chen went down to Shenzhen and had no luck finding work there, so she finally decided to go home.

At the Guangzhou Railway Station, Chen met up with some friends from the same town. They are all very young, born after 1985. They never went to college and some didn't even finish high school. It's hard to tell if they regret choosing to be migrant workers or not. But Chen's friend shrugged and said: "So what? College graduates can't find jobs either!"

That's true. According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, one million college graduates from 2008 and previous years are still on the market, while six million more will graduate by summer 2009. Lopsided supply-demand has slashed prevailing salaries and pushed more college graduates to attend graduate school or join the army.

After the Chinese New Year, Chen and her friends will give up on Guangdong and travel to Zhejiang province instead. Hopefully they'll find some work there.

[Part of this blog post is based on a Chinese-language story on Hunan Online.]