Almost 40, Li Zhengwen is having maybe the toughest time of his life.

After being jobless for four months, Li is considering vocational training to make himself more employable.

"I want to take the electrician courses. Every building needs electricians," says Li with a high school diploma.

Since leaving the countryside of southwest China's Sichuan Province in 1990 to find work, he has been to Beijing and coastal cities like Guangzhou and Qingdao, doing assembly line work, building exterior decoration, and store-keeping.

"Work was everywhere then, as along as you had enough muscle," he says. "So I never thought about learning any skills."

As many as 20 million migrant workers nationwide returned home during the Spring Festival without jobs as the global financial crisis brought a halt to urban construction, and factories in coastal areas closed down.

Some returned to the cities after the festival, seeking new opportunities.

Chongqing, a major labor force region on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, has more than 3 million migrant workers earning their livings outside the municipality every year. The local government estimates about a million of farmer-turned migrant workers will have to stay home this year while the others leave to look for work.

Li didn't go home this year for the Lunar New Year, China's traditional family gathering time, and continued job-hunting in Beijing.

He applied for a stockman position at an IT company, thinking his past experience might make him a prospect, but was turned down because he didn't know how to use computer software.

He went to a job fair specially set up for migrant workers last week and found all the positions required certain skills. Only one construction site needed hands, but required a driving license, which Li doesn't have.

He read about the Beijing occupational skills training school on a leaflet for "Spring Breeze Action", an activity organized by local labor and social security bureau to help migrant workers look for jobs.

He decided to sign up for the primary-level electrician courses after consulting the staff at the enrollment desk.

Staff member Jia Lan noticed that there are about 20 migrant workers ask about training courses every day and 60 to 70 percent of the trainees are migrant workers.

"Most of them prefer to take electrician or welding courses, as these are relatively easy to learn for unskilled people," Jia says.

Yang Chengjie aged 25 from Hebei province, enrolled in the electrician course last December. He now works as a shop assistant with a monthly salary of 2,000 yuan (about 290 US dollars), but he is worried the job is stable enough, as "anyone can do it".