The number of Chinese rural migrant workers who worked outside their home provincial regions dropped last year amid government moves to encourage them to return home, according to data released Friday.

About 76.66 million rural people moved across provinces to work in towns and cities in 2016, down 1 percent year on year, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a report.

Cross-province workers accounted for 45.3 percent of all rural workers leaving their own hometowns to make a living, falling from a share of 45.9 percent in 2015.

The growth in migrant workers leaving their towns has seen a continuous decrease in the past six years, down from 3.4 percent in 2011 to just 0.3 percent in 2016, the report said.

The drop came amid government moves to encourage rural migrant workers to return to their hometowns and start businesses.

At the end of 2016, the number of rural migrant workers in China totaled 281.71 million, up 1.5 percent year on year.

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