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SHANGHAI: Life is never easy for China’s nearly 300 million migrant workers, but with the coronavirus destroying jobs at a historic moment, unemployed factory worker Wei Guikun is at its worst.
Since March, Wei has wandered in search of work from his home in eastern Shandong province, where virus blockades left him stranded for weeks, to factories in the southern coastal regions of China, and now back north to Shanghai. .
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But the pandemic has paralyzed the demand for exports abroad and the 29-year-old has faced only rejection or low payment for his approximately 3,500 km odyssey.
Workers wait in line to collect wages in Shanghai. (Photo: AFP / Hector Retamal)
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The global pandemic will force millions of people around the world to spend International Workers’ Day on Friday in unemployment and uncertainty.
But perhaps nowhere is the pressure felt as deeply as in the world’s second-largest economy, where the Communist Party has long gambled its legitimacy on job delivery and prosperity in exchange for public acceptance of its political monopoly.
The pandemic has paralyzed the demand for exports abroad and has strongly affected Chinese factories. (Photo: AFP / Hector Retamal)
“My coworkers will definitely be mad (if their livelihoods suffer),” Wei said, pulling a wheeled suitcase down an apparently endless avenue in a sprawling Shanghai manufacturing district after another rejection.
“I have met coworkers from Shandong, Henan and Heilongjiang. They are all like that.”
The situation raises the specter of millions of angry citizens potentially protesting their misfortune.
At this point, no one expects mass worker concern in China, which is tightly controlled, but unemployment is skyrocketing after the economy slashed for the first time in decades in the first three months of the year.
SERIOUS CONCERN
UBS Securities said this week that perhaps 80 million jobs in services, industry and construction were lost and that more than 10 million other jobs could evaporate in the export sectors as orders cease and companies avoid large worker meetings due to to lingering fears of viruses.
READ: Comment: When China sneezes, the world economy catches a cold with COVID-19
“China’s labor market pressure may be the most challenging since the late 1990s and early 2000s,” said UBS.
Chinese brokerage Zhongtai Securities estimated unemployment last week at 20.5 percent, or about 70 million workers, far exceeding that of the 2008-09 global financial crisis and three times official estimates.
Zhao Chang is at an employment agency in Shanghai waiting for a promotion to his new job at the factory. (Photo: AFP / Hector Retamal)
But in an indication of the sensitivity of China’s job data, Zhongtai later retracted the report, apparently under official pressure.
Even if still employed, an estimated 250 million workers will lose 10 to 50 percent of earnings this year, The Economist’s Intelligence Unit said.
But despite a series of stimulus measures, such as trade tax exemptions and liquidity injections for the markets, UBS said aid for inactive workers has been “very limited despite the impact on the labor market has been substantial”.
Geoffrey Crothall of the China Labor Bulletin (CLB), which tracks Chinese labor strikes and workplace abuses, said “clearly there is serious concern in the central government.”
“So far, however, aid measures have done little to really benefit workers,” he added.
CLB has already tracked dozens of small-scale labor protests in the country since the virus broke out.
“There will be more and more (Chinese) workers who will not be paid, and I think they will see a proportional increase in protests,” Crothall said.
“A lot depends on whether people are willing to meet in large groups again.”
DEBT CONCERNED
Various reasons for inaction have been suggested, including fear of overstimulating the economy and creating a hangover of debt such as the one accumulated in 2008-09, which China is still struggling to reduce.
The virus also postponed the annual session of the national parliament, where major policies are enacted.
The Communist Party has long gambled its legitimacy on the delivery of jobs and prosperity in exchange for public acceptance of its political monopoly. (Photo: AFP / Hector Retamal)
Originally scheduled for early March, it will now begin May 22, state media reported Wednesday.
Last week, the central government voiced concern about workers and urged more aid for the rural poor and migrants, including the extension of unemployment benefits for the first time.
But Crothall said such benefits are so low and difficult to obtain that “they really aren’t going to help.”
But there are other measures on the table.
Apparently out of fear of a backlash, the central government has ordered cities to make it easier for migrants to obtain residence where they work, opening up access to local social services such as education and health care.
Until then, life is on hold for Wei, who hoped to earn enough to get married soon, but returned to Shandong this week, still out of work.
“If I still can’t find a job or wages are low, it will definitely affect my ability to get married and I will be concerned.”
