This year, well-wishers have had to be careful which salutations they choose. “Caiyuan gungun” has been virtually banned because it sounds exactly the same as the phrase meaning “laid off and discarded”. “Xinxiang shicheng” is also out of favour because it sounds suspiciously like the Chinese for “40 per cent pay cut”.
The collapse of China's export engine appears to have hit the most vulnerable first, with the state estimating that 20m of the 130m rural migrant workers have lost their jobs and returned to home towns and villages.
The implied 15.3 per cent unemployment rate among migrants is not captured in official jobless numbers, which measure only urban workers who register as unemployed. That official number rose to 8.86m people, or 4.2 per cent of the urban workforce, in December, but economists say it vastly underestimates the true scale of the problem. For one thing it does not count anyone made redundant who still receives some sort of stipend.