*This report was written by a labour organization in Guangdong province, and the author owns the copyright. It is prohibited to reprint this article without the author's permission.
From the previous survey report of work resumption condition during the COVID-19 outbreak in China (“report 1”), we revealed that around 78% employees participated in our research delayed their work resumption time. During the delayed work resumption period, only fewer than 30% workers received normal salary. As the pandemic severity has decreased since the report 1 completed and production has gradually resumed, a labour organization in Guangdong launched the second phase of online survey research on work resumption situation during April 17 to 27, 2020.
The target participants of this study were employees who were working or “not working while employment retaining” and totally 331 valid responses were collected. Since the questionnaire distribution went through the Internet (WeChat), the range of locations and job types of the interviewees were limited. Nearly half of the participants worked in Guangdong (around 48.6%) and most participants in Guangdong participants were employed in Foshan (around 34.4% of total participants).
Instead of a comprehensive and precise reflection of the general work resumption situation in China, this survey provides a specifically localized information for further reference.
The basic information is summarized as below.
Part 1 Participant basic information
Table 1: Basic information of the participant
Type
|
Option
|
Ratio
|
Gender
Distribution
|
Male
|
53.78%
|
Female
|
46.22%
|
Age
Distribution
|
<18 years old
|
2.11%
|
18-25 years old
|
22.96%
|
26-45 years old
|
62.84%
|
46-55years old
|
10.27%
|
>55 years old
|
1.81%
|
Household
Registration
Region
Distribution
|
Guangdong
|
48.64%
|
Guangxi
|
7.55%
|
Hunan
|
7.55%
|
Sichuan
|
6.34%
|
Hubei
|
4.23%
|
Jiangsu
|
3.32%
|
Henan
|
3.32%
|
Others
|
19.03%
|
Work
Region
Distribution
|
Guangdong
|
78.55%
|
Jiangsu
|
7.85%
|
Others
|
13.60%
|
Industry
Distribution
|
Manufacturing
|
30.51%
|
Agriculture
|
0.6%
|
Construction
|
3.93%
|
Finance and insurance
|
2.42%
|
Transport, post and telecommunication services
|
3.63%
|
Social work, health care, sports, and social welfare facilities
|
18.13%
|
Trades like garment, catering and shops
|
4.83%
|
Education, culture, arts and broadcasting and television
|
6.65%
|
Household services and consultation
|
1.81%
|
Scientific research and polytechnic services
|
2.42%
|
Others
|
25.08%
|
Nature of
the employer
|
Foreign capital
|
4.83%
|
Chinese-foreign joint funded
|
3.63%
|
State-owned
|
9.97%
|
Private
|
56.8%
|
Government
|
7.85%
|
Others
|
16.92%
|
Job position
|
Production worker, transportation worker and some physical worker
|
32.33%
|
Service industry worker
|
23.26%
|
Business worker
|
2.72%
|
Agricultural worker
|
0%
|
Professional and technician
|
14.8%
|
Clerk
|
10.57%
|
Person in charge
|
2.42%
|
Others
|
13.9%
|
Firstly, similar as in report 1, the majority of the respondents was young to middle-aged worker in Guangdong province. Around 63% of our participants aged 26-45 years old and 73% aged 26-55 years old. As analyzed in report 1, young and middle-aged workers are usually the main source of financial income in households. It could reflect the economic problems among many families during the epidemic period.
Also, about 79% of our participants worked in Guangdong and most of them were general workers. Management level staff and technicians only account for around 17% of the total respondents.
Secondly, the interviewees came from diverse range of industries. Manufacture (30%) and social work and social welfare were the major industries in which the respondents were working. This distribution pattern may result from the fact that the questionnaire was distributed by a social organization.
Thirdly, private enterprises have become the main employers in the labour market (56.8%), much higher than that taken by other types of employers.
Part 2 Main Section
On 6th February 2020, Guangdong Province issued a series of policy supporting companies for work resumption. According to the local news report (Yangcheng Evening News, 26th February 2020) , until 21st February 2020, nearly 42,000 enterprises had resumed production in Guangdong, with a work resumption rate of 82.2%. In Guangzhou and Yangjiang, the work resumption rate of enterprises exceeded 90% and that ratio in Zhaoqing, Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Shaoguan, Zhongshan and Chaozhou was higher than 80%.
From the above data, Guangdong province, like most areas in China, the work resumption progress was about to complete at the time of the current survey started (17th April, 2020). Therefore, this survey focused on the work situation after work resumption.
1. Employment starting time and length of service
(1) More than 80% of the respondents were employed before COVID-19
As COVID-19 outbreak was an emergency, the analysis of work starting time and length of service, with reference time point of COVID-19 outbreak starting time, had limited previous data. Therefore, the researchers conducted descriptive analysis for this part, as presented in Figure 1.
Table 2: Employment starting date and length of service
Type
|
Option
|
Ratio
|
Your employment starting date
|
Before 23rd January 2020
|
80.97%
|
January 24th to 8th February 2020
|
2.42%
|
9th February 2020 to 29th February 2020
|
5.74%
|
After 1st March 2020
|
10.88%
|
Your length of service
in the current company
(how long have you been working here?)
|
Less than 3 months
|
14.2%
|
3 months to 1 year
|
22.05%
|
1 year - 3 years
|
30.82%
|
3 years - 10 years
|
22.36%
|
More than 10 years
|
10.57%
|
From Table 2, around 81% of the respondents started working before 23rd January, 2020, the outbreak time of COVID-19. The rest about 19% interviewees started their employment after COVID-19 outbreak.
(2) Around 10% of the interviewees started their current work during or after the work resumption period (“the new employee” in short). Their reasons for leaving the previous job were generally not related to COVID-19.
According to the relevant regulation and policy, 9th February 2020 was the last day of production stoppage in China. Most areas, including Guangdong province, had resumed production since that day. Only 34 participants over the 331 valid respondents was reported to start their present work during or after the work resumption wave. The 34 participants fell into the following three conditions, “starting their existing works from 9th February 2020 to 29th February 2020”, “starting their works after 1st March 2020”, and “working in the existing enterprises less than three months”. They occupied around 10% of the total interviewees.
For these interviewees, their reasons for leaving the previous work are shown in the following Table 3.
Table 3: The reasons why you leave your previous enterprise (in Foshan)
Reasons
|
Ratio
|
COVID-19 Pandemic
|
3%
|
Occupational injuries/diseases
|
12%
|
Long-time wages arrears of the enterprises
|
6%
|
Enterprises’ difficulty to operate/redundancy
|
15%
|
Personal reasons
|
44%
|
Never change job before
|
14%
|
Others
|
6%
|
The survey result indicated that from work resumption wave started to the end of our data collection period, no significant relationship between leaving the previous job and COVID-19 incidence. However, there are still possible influences from COVID-19 on the future labour market.
(3) The private firms were possibly the main “job provider” in the post-COVID-19 China
Table 4.1: Employment date of the new employees
|
Early than 2020.01.24
|
Between 2020.01.24
and 2020.02.08
|
State-owned company
|
100%
|
0%
|
Foreign capital
and Chinese-foreign
joint funded company
|
79.57%
|
0%
|
Private firm
|
75.77%
|
3.61%
|
Table 4.2: Employment date of the new employees
|
Between 2020.02.09
and 2020.02.29
|
After 2020.03.01
|
State-owned company
|
0%
|
0%
|
Foreign capital
and Chinese-foreign
joint funded company
|
3.57%
|
17.86%
|
Private firm
|
7.73%
|
12.89%
|
From Table 4, “foreign capital and Chinese-foreign joint funded company”(21.4%) provided similar proportion of job opportunities for the new employees as “private firms”(20.6%). However, consider of the data in Basic Information section that more than half of the respondents (56.8%) worked in private firms, while only 8.46% worked in foreign-funded companies or Chinese-foreign joint funded companies, the influence from private firms on Chinese labour market was significant.
2. Labour right protection situation
(1) Employment contract and social insurance
Among all respondents claimed “employment relation existing” with their employers, 85% of them signed employment contract and 72% purchased social insurance. However, for the new employees, only 50% of them purchased social insurance.
When it comes to the responses of “relation with your employer”, 68% of the respondents selected “employment relation”(24%, “dispatched labour”, and 8%, other relations).
The following questions required the participants with self-reported employment relation to provide information related to their employment contract and social insurance. 85% of them signed employment contract but only 59% had contract in duplicate and hold a copy of their contract. 72% of the respondents in employment relation received five Insurances from their employers. (See Table 5 and 6 below)
Table 5: Did you sign employment contract with the employer?
Option
|
Ratio
|
Yes, I had contract in duplicate and hold a copy of my contract
|
59%
|
Yes, but I don't hold a copy of my contract
|
26%
|
No
|
13%
|
I don't know
|
25
|
Table 6: Did you receive five Insurances from your employer?
Option
|
Ratio
|
Yes
|
72%
|
I Only recieved occupational injury insurance
|
6%
|
I Only recieved commercial accident insurance
|
6%
|
No
|
16%
|
“Employment contract in duplicate, each party hold one copy” and “Five Insurances purchased by the employer” were stated in the Labor Contract Law of the People's Republic of China. Only 54.9% of total respondents gave positive responses for the two mentioned questions. The result indicated that 54.9% of total participants worked for employers provided employment contract and social insurance compliance with the relevant regulation in Labor Contract Law.
70.5% of the new employees reported that they had enjoyed employment relation and 79.2% of them had signed employment contracts with their enterprises, but only half of them enjoyed social insurance from the employers.
(2) Occupational health and labour protection benefits related to COVID-19
Firstly, 87% of respondents needed to wear protective gears and 75% of them received free protective items from their employers.
Among all participants, about 87% of them needed to wear protective items during working. 75% of their employers provided free protective gears while around 21% needed to buy protective items by themselves.
Secondly, more than 60% of the interviewees worried about infecting COVID-19 from working.
The survey reflected that more than 62% of our participants worried about infecting COVID-19 from working, and around 25.7% reported seriously worried. See the Figure 9 for details.
Table7: Are you worrying about infecting COVID-19 due to working?
Options
|
Number
|
Ratio
|
Seriously worried
|
85
|
25.68%
|
Worried
|
121
|
36.56%
|
Not worried
|
125
|
37.76%
|
Total Responses
|
331
|
|
Thirdly, 86% of the respondents thought that infection of COVID-19 during working should be treated as work-related injuries.
On 23rd January 2020, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, Ministry of Finance and National Health Commission co-issued an announcement to clarify under what conditions, the employees with COVID-19 infection would be classified as occupational injuries victims: employees involving COVID-19 prevention and treatment related work who infected COVID-19 or died due to COVID-19 infection during job duties performing.
However, more than 86% of the participants claimed that infecting COVID-19 when performing job duties should be regarded as work-related injuries. The reasons for this misunderstanding may be: 1) employees were not fully informed with the relevant policy, or 2) employees were more willing to be included as work-related injuries for COVID-19 infection during working, regardless of job nature.
(3) Labour right issues such as wage payment and working hours
Firstly, for the employees resumed working:
-
28% of them had irregular weekly working days: 22% had no weekly rest days while 6% worked fewer than four days per week;
-
41% worked overtime during regular working days and 7% worked more than 12 hours per day;
-
46% of them received monthly salary between 3,001 to 5,000 CNY: 71% earned no more than 5,000 CNY per month and 25% no more than 3,000 CNY monthly.
The research team analyzed the responses to questions working days, hours and salary level from the 282 participants who selected “work resumed”.
From the participants who had resumed working, 6% of them worked no more than four days per week while 22% worked seven days per week (no rest day). 34% of them worked 9-11 hours per day and 7% worked more than 12 hours daily. See Table 8 and 9 below.
Table 8: How many days do you work in a week?
Option
|
Ratio
|
No more than 4 days
|
6%
|
5 to 6 days
|
22%
|
7 days
|
72%
|
Table 9: How many hours do you work daily?
Option
|
Ratio
|
No more than 8 hours
|
56%
|
9 to 11 hours
|
34%
|
More than 11 hours
|
7%
|
Others
|
3%
|
Nearly half of the participants who resumed working earned 3,001 to 5,000 CNY per month (46%) while a quarter of them earned less than 3,000 CNY monthly, as shown in Table 10 below.
Table 10: Monthly salary
Option
|
Ratio
|
No more than 2000 CNY
|
6%
|
2000 to 3000 CNY
|
14%
|
3001 to 5000 CNY
|
46%
|
5001 to 8000 CNY
|
21%
|
8000 to 10000 CNY
|
6%
|
More than 10000 CNY
|
2%
|
Without income
|
5%
|
Secondly, for the respondents who had not resumed working or working came to a halt: nearly 60% of them earned less than 3,000 CNY per month.
Totally 49 participants had not started work resumption. 57% of them earned less than 3,000 CNY per month: this part included 26.5% participants without income.
Table11: Monthly salary of the employees who do not returned to work
Option
|
Ratio
|
No more than 2000 CNY
|
16.3%
|
2000 to 3000 CNY
|
14.2%
|
3001 to 5000 CNY
|
24.4%
|
5001 to 8000 CNY
|
12.2%
|
8000 to 10000 CNY
|
2%
|
More than 10000 CNY
|
4%
|
Without income
|
26.5%
|
Thirdly, comparison of working conditions between pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 time:
-
Working hours: 18% of the participants increased working hours while 33% reduced;
-
Salary level: 12% of them had a higher salary level while 34% had a lower one;
-
Workload: 32% of our participants increased workloads while 27% decreased;
-
Amount of employees in their companies: 20% of our participants had more employees in their companies while 37% had fewer ones.
We summarized the responses to working condition changes from interviewees started current employment before 23rd January 2020 in the table below (Table12). The relevant questions covered working time, salary level, workload and employee number in their companies. From the survey responses, participants reported changes in the four mentioned aspects to different extents.
Table 12.1: Changes comparing with pre-COVID time?
|
Working time
|
Salary level
|
Significantly increased
|
7.55%
|
1.51%
|
Slightly increased
|
10.57%
|
11.18%
|
Same
|
49.24%
|
52.87%
|
Slightly decreased
|
20.54%
|
20.24%
|
Significantly decreased
|
12.08%
|
14.2%
|
Table 12.2: Changes comparing with pre-COVID time?
|
Workload
|
Employee number in your company
|
Significantly increased |
10.57%
|
4.53%
|
Slightly increased |
21.45%
|
15.41%
|
Same |
41.39%
|
42.6%
|
Slightly decreased |
17.52%
|
27.79%
|
Significantly decreased |
9.06%
|
9.67%
|
3. Special labour right: Quarantine time and Hubei employees’ labour right conditions
(1) Labour right issues during quarantine: more than 8% of the interviewees was quarantined, with unsatisfactory labour right conditions.
-
41% of the quarantined interviewees need to pay the quarantine fee by themselves;
-
Nearly 30% of the quarantined interviewees received no salary payment during the quarantine period;
-
Foreign capital companies and Chinese-foreign joint funded companies 100% paid for the quarantine costs of their staff; governmental employers 100% paid full salary to their employees during quarantine period; labour right conditions during quarantine period varied in a wide range among private firms.
Table13: Quarantine period
Option
|
Ratio
|
2 to 3 days
|
8%
|
7 days
|
17%
|
14 to 15 days
|
63%
|
20 days
|
4%
|
More than 42 days
|
8%
|
Table 14: Who paid the quarantine fee?
Option
|
Ratio
|
Self-funded
|
41%
|
No charge
|
44%
|
Employer
|
15%
|
Table 15: Where did you live during the quarantine?
Option
|
Ratio
|
Home
|
70%
|
Employee's department
|
8%
|
Hotel
|
7%
|
Hospital
|
7%
|
Centralized quarantine
|
4%
|
Others
|
4%
|
Table 16: How many payments did you receive during the quarantine?
Option
|
Ratio
|
Full salary payment
|
22%
|
Basic payment
|
37%
|
70% of the basic payment
|
3.7%
|
No payment
|
29.6%
|
Others
|
7.4%
|
From table 13 to 16, the major form of quarantine among our respondents was home-quarantine (78%, including quarantine in dorms). More than 88% of the interviewees had a quarantine period of 15 days or less, but 41% claimed that they needed a self-funded quarantine period. Only 22% of quarantined respondents received full salary payment while nearly 30% of them received no payment.
We sorted the labour right issues by the nature of employers (state-owned company, partially or fully foreign-funded company and private firm) in the table below (Table 17). Partially or fully foreign-funded companies covered full cost of quarantine for their employees and state-owned companies paid full salary for the quarantined labour. But it varied among private firms based on various kinds of business models and operation. Please see the table 17.
Table 17: Quarantine period employee right:
state-owned company vs partially or fully foreign-funded company vs private firm
|
Employee
qurantine
ratio
|
Quarantine fee
|
Salary payment
|
State-owned
company
|
7.69%
|
50% paid by employee
50% free/paid by employer
|
100% full salary payment
|
Partially or fully
foreign-funded
company
|
7.14% |
100% free/paid by employer
|
100% basic salary payment |
Private firm
|
9.28%
|
44.44% paid by employee
55.56% free/paid by employer
|
17% full salary payment
28% full payment
5% 70% of the full payment
39% without payment
11% others
|
(2) Labour right protection for Hubei workers: highly likely to be unfairly treated
According to the answers, 100 respondents had colleagues came back to work from Hubei province. 74% of the 100 participants reported that Hubei staff in their company was required to be quarantined. 11% of the interviewees shared that their enterprises had asked employees from Hubei province to work separately from other staff, 6% shared that their enterprises had lowered the salary level of Hubei employees and 2% shared that their enterprises had terminated the employment relations with Hubei employees. Moreover, 6% of our respondents shared that their enterprises had banned Hubei colleagues to go back to work. Only 10% reported about normal salary payment for their Hubei colleagues. See the details from the table below (Table 18).
Table 18: Action by your company on employees returned from Hubei(100 valid responses)
Options
|
Number
|
Ratio
|
Quarantine
|
74
|
74%
|
Separated working place
|
11
|
11%
|
Full payment of salary comparing with pre-COVID time
|
10
|
10%
|
Reduced salary level
|
6
|
6%
|
End the contract
|
2
|
2%
|
Not allowing them return working
|
6
|
6%
|
4. 37% of the participants indicated that their labour rights had been deprived without going through democratic negotiation
From table 19, around 63% of the interviewees reported that there were not violations of labour rights without going through democratic mediation in their enterprises. In other words, about 37% of the participants suffered from this problem.
Table 19: Are these situations existed in your company?
Option
|
Ratio
|
Lower the salary level without negotiation
|
12.69%
|
Change the job duties without negotiation
|
9.06%
|
Lower the job position without negotiation
|
3.63%
|
Incomplete payment of salary during the delayed work resumption period
|
12.69%
|
Pay no salary during the work halted period or on leave
|
16.62%
|
Decide the lay-off or work-halted employee list without negotiation
|
4..53%
|
None of above
|
63.44%
|
Part 3. COVID-19 on current life and the future
More than 78% of the interviewees thought that COVID-19 caused difficulties in their life and 18% regarded it as “serious difficulties”.
About the work-related pressure, more than 46% of our respondents are worried about losing their jobs, 49% about COVID-19 infection at work and 27% about wages arrears.
As mentioned before, the majority of our respondents are young and middle-aged workers aged 26-45 years old. This age group is generally the main source of income in household. They usually bear the pressure of fostering their children, supporting the senior-aged and even the mortgage. In Guangdong province, the annual average expenditure level per head was 28,995 CNY in 2019 (2,416 per person per month) and 34,424 CNY for urban residents. The data provide a reference for understanding the result that “71% of our respondents earned less than 5,000 CNY per month”. For a couple to support a family with four members, each person needs to earn 4832.5 CNY. For a four person family with only one member working with monthly salary level lower than 5,000 CNY, the income per head in this family is only around 1,000 CNY.
COVID-19 caused an increased risk of being unemployed for the workers in China. It is a worth-considering social issue.
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