The park was in the center of China’s richest county. Willow trees clustered around a well-manicured pond. Joggers in performance gear circled shiny new playgrounds filled with children.
But in a quieter part of the park, Hu Xinbing was resting after another day of trying, unsuccessfully, to win his share of the local prosperity. After failing to find a job that morning, Mr. Hu, 31, lay behind some bushes, using a windbreaker as a pillow, and waited until he could try again the next day.
Around him, about a dozen other out-of-work men had claimed their own corners of the park in Kunshan, about 30 miles outside of Shanghai, dozing on benches or inside tents.
Not long ago, they would have been hard-pressed to find the downtime. Kunshan, which in the early 2010s produced one-third of the world’s laptops, is at the heart of China’s gargantuan electronics manufacturing industry. For decades, millions of workers from across the country, including Mr. Hu, flocked there for steady work assembling devices for Apple and Dell. For more than 20 years, Kunshan has been ranked as China’s most economically developed county.
But now Mr. Hu is one of tens of millions of workers who may be left behind by China’s pivot away from low-end manufacturing toward advanced technology. Kunshan’s government has offered generous support for companies focused on technologies such as artificial intelligence or flying cars. Meanwhile, traditional electronics makers, facing uncertain demand because of trade frictions, have embraced automation, cutting positions and wages for human workers.
“It’s all robots driving screws. They don’t need people to do it anymore,” said Mr. Hu, who is originally from the poorer inland province of Henan.
