Passengers wait to board trains at the Shenyang Railway Station in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, Feb. 2, 2017. (Xinhua/Zhang Wenkui)
(ECNS) -- As the Spring Festival holiday came to an end, migrant workers began to leave for cities to find a job or return to work.
Chinese tech company Qihoo 360 said its location-based heat map data collected from around 900 million users revealed the largest human movement around the week-long Spring Festival, Chinese Lunar New Year.
East China's Jiangxi Province ranked first for sending the greatest umber of migrant workers across the country during the holiday, accounting for 7.25 percent of the province's total population of 45.66 million, data showed.
Central China's Hunan Province took second spot, with 7.16 percent of its population working in other provinces. This was followed by Henan (6.3 percent), Anhui (6.27 percent) and Shandong (6.05 percent) provinces.
The data showed cities in the Pearl River and Yangtze River deltas, two of China's most important economic regions, became almost empty due to the exodus of migrant workers. More than 61 percent of people left Guangzhou during the holiday, followed by Shenzhen (60.76 percent), Shanghai (56.76 percent) and Beijing (52.01 percent).
Experts said the destination of migrant workers continues to focus on coastal or first-tier cities for better job opportunities and higher salaries.
