PICTURES and stories of seven Shenzhen migrant workers appeared in Time magazine Thursday, as representatives of Chinese workers, runners-up in the American magazine's "Person of the Year" award for 2009.

The seven, all employees of Shenzhen Guangke's LED factory in their 20s and 30s who are from different parts of China, are realizing their own dreams in the city, where the economy grew by an average of 27 percent annually between 1980 and 2006.

Like tens of millions of other young Chinese women, Peng Chunxia, 21, migrated from Hunan for a job in the manufacturing hub. But while her colleagues who arrived in the region a decade earlier told stories of suffering and sacrifice, to Peng the experience was much more entertaining. She left home at 17, following her elder sister. "Where we are from, most people leave for work," she told Time.

"I was young, and I thought it'd be fun to come here." So far, that?s proved true. While the job can be taxing ? she works six days a week, with only Sunday off ? it?s far from the rigors endured by earlier generations. "I get tired, but that's OK," she says. "There is work to do."

Xiao Hongxia, a 31-year-old Hunan native, had to stare into a microscope for more than 10 hours a day, often for weeks without a day of rest. When she got off work, she couldn't see clearly for hours. "I knew that wasn't going to work. What could I do? So I began to slowly study, and lift myself up." She learned some management skills, and was eventually able to move off the assembly line. Xiao, 31, is now a manager and she gets Sundays off.

While most migrant workers long for home, Cao Bin, 20, from Chengdu, Sichuan, is glad to be gone. He left Chengdu, in Sichuan Province, two years ago and hasn't been back. Chengdu is one of the most pleasant cities in China, but Cao thought it was boring. "That town is too lazy," he says. "I wanted to go where life is faster."In Shenzhen, he found the furious pace he was looking for.

The Chinese workers were in the only group named by the magazine.

The magazine said it had made the decision because it was the toil of the army of Chinese workers that had pulled the world economy through thick and thin.

"In China they have a word for it, baoba, meaning 'protect eight' ? the 8 percent annual economic growth rate that officials believe is critical to ensuring social stability," the magazine said.

"A year ago, many thought hitting such a figure in 2009 was a pipe dream. But China has done it, and this year it remains the world's fastest-growing major economy ? and an economic stimulus for everyone else."

"Who deserves the credit? Above all, the tens of millions of workers who have left their homes, and often their families, to find work in the factories of China's booming coastal cities," it said.

Leaving behind families and homes to migrate to China's cities, they are known as nongmingong, meaning "farmers-turned-workers." They take on largely manual work and are among the country's lowest-paid workers.

They often go about their work in relative obscurity, despite numbering around 200 million.

"By selecting the Chinese group, the magazine is actually highlighting the role of the Chinese economy in helping the world economy out of the crisis," said Zhong Jiyin, an economist with the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.