SHENZHEN: Millions of unskilled migrant workers could be forced to leave this southern boomtown in the face of its continuing industrial restructuring, a local statistician has said.

The lacking skills and general know-how of migrant farmers-turned-workers could make companies unwilling to employ them, Kong Ailing, chief of Shenzhen statistics team of National Bureau of Statistics, said.

Barely half of the more than 8 million of Shenzhen's total 12 million population who come from other areas only finished junior middle school education, and the working background of 56 percent was in the electronics, machinery, furniture, garment, toy, catering and services sectors, according to a recent survey by the statistics team.