Sweeping the country

In China there are legions of people who sweep for a living. Most nights people go down the street sweeping the gutters. There is a guy who sweeps off the basketball courts at the university every morning. I have seen people sweeping dirt parking lots. They could sweep for years and not get rid of all the dirt...because it is a dirt parking lot. Yesterday I saw a man in the middle of a busy street sweeping away the puddles. It was still raining and there was tons of traffic. I was not quite sure what his aim was. Sometimes I think it is just busy work to keep 1.4 billion people employed.