Migrant workers who quit their jobs in Guangdong province arrive in Zhengzhou, Henan province, on Monday.

Thousands of migrant workers in the Pearl River Delta are packing up and heading home, as jobs and decent wages in the region become increasingly hard to find.

"There just wasn't enough work; I was barely making my basic salary," Wen Caixia, who quit her job at a shoe factory in Dongguan, Guangdong province, in favor of a return to her village in Hubei province, told China Daily yesterday at Guangzhou East railway station.

Wen said she and her husband had been working in Dongguan for more than two years.

"Over the past few months, the company just wasn't getting enough orders. There was never any chance of overtime, so we were unable to save any money," she said.

"The living costs are very high here, so I think it's better if I go home and take care of my son," she said.

Before boarding her train, Wen said she hoped to return to the province in January for the Spring Festival.

"It might be easier to find a job then, and hopefully I'll be able to make more money," she said.

Also waiting for a train yesterday was Liang Dong, an IT engineer who said he was taking a sabbatical from his job at a printed circuit board factory in the Nanhai district of Foshan.

"The company has seen its orders plummet since the beginning of the financial crisis," he said.