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title: Newsclipping Dec 22 -Jan 23

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# News Digest: Lunar New Year Holiday comes, and Some Companies try to Keep Business as Usual -- But Workers would Say Otherwise

<center>Flocks of travellers waiting for their train back home. (Southern Weekly)</center><br>

It is the first Lunar New Year Festival without travelling restrictions since 2021, and migrant workers travel en masse. Known as the "biggest human migration in the world", although somewhat exaggerated, the festival marks a time when rural migrant workers head back home to spend time with their families.

After 2 years of travelling ban, workers thrust back home at an even earlier time than usual, and estimated daily traveller counts exceed 30 million throughout the nation. While most industries take a break, a few were anxious to maintain production in the festival period, for different reasons. They however face very different fates.

### As Discontent over Employment Terms Grew, Couriers Struggle to Maintain Holiday Delivery Workforce
<center>A parcel delivery staff. (Time Finance)</center><br>
In January, a [narrative](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/3cyJ5aUBiyBEXjgmaVZPyg) emerged online that went like this: [a daily rate of] 1000 Yuan could not retain parcel delivery staff who were so insistent to go back home. As courier point managers responded, labor shortages were around 20%-30% at each point. Combined with the COVID-induced worker shortage last December, the shortage led to as long as a two-weeks-delay.

Widespread need to retain delivery staff for the Holidays [stemmed from 2021](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/bbLMEVo1gtuDkGcm_bXKqw) when urban residents stayed at home under traveling restrictions. E-commerce and logistics giants including SF Express, Cainiao and JD.com opted for a zero-downtime policy to absorb the great demand for e-commerce purchasing, which translated to commercial success – a 260% hike of delivery orders fulfilled. “The amount of work does not match the normal days, but compared to New Year Holidays in the past it is so much more,” a courier point manager said.

But frontline workers did not necessarily benefit from it. [Time Finance](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/pJe3Hx6WQhtHWaTwz6naeg) managed to contact a parcel delivery worker working in Zhejiang Province, who complaind about the reduction in bonuses across the years. In previous years, festive-period income could amount to 10,000 Yuan, but now “it’d be decent to get 3,000 Yuan during the Festival.” As courier points has proliferated across the country, increased delivery orders have to be divided by an even more expanded workforce, while fewer delivery orders are eligible for bonuses. Agencies always get a cut from the bonuses, and employees end up getting a small portion of what they are promised. It was not surprising when comment sections of the news reports were filled with complaints: “One part of it is wanting to go home; the other part is that if you calculate the wage in terms of working hours, it’s simply not enough. You’ll have to work at least 12-14 hours each day. The platform drains every second out of you while making deductions from your pay.” Another comment says: “the platform says 1-1.5 Yuan for each order fulfilled but we can only get 50 cents.”

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<center>Comments below a news report on delivery staff shortage. Most were complaints about intensive work and inadequate remunerations.</center><br>

After the Lunar New Year, the industry will face another test: resumption of work. Courier point managers were pessimistic about workers coming back. “After the holidays, at least 3 staff members at our point will be leaving,” a point manager lamented. They had been losing staff for some time, mostly due to intensifying workload, stagnating wages and penalty schemes that lower the incomes. Unless employment terms improve, a long-term shortage in workers seems to await.

### Garment Workshops Hope to Get Over COVID by Cutting Holidays Short
<center>Garment workshops operating at 9 in the evening. (Jiemian News)</center><br>

In the garment industry, on the other hand, small garment workshops could not wait to resume production after being hit hard by the November lockdown.

Kangle Village in Guangzhou, the garment hub hit hardest by the pandemic, [looks to restart production](https://www.163.com/dy/article/HRMCJR7J0534A4SC.html) with the New Year Holiday cut short. Indeed, for the workshops that managed to survive the COVID slump, their owners could not afford to suspend production any further. “Workshops’ profits [around here] dropped by at least half in 2022. I’m the lucky one – many of my competitors recorded losses.” Said a workshop owner interviewed by Time Weekly. The village experienced a 50-day lockdown in November and December, resulting in complete suspension, in addition to a loss in overall demand and sporadic halts throughout 2022.

Garment workshops like these were small in scale, mostly of several dozen employees. Wages are mostly piece-rate such that workers would be compelled to work 10 to 14-hour workdays, and legally required Social Insurance contributions from employers were virtually nonexistent. In recent years, foreign demands increasingly became the lifelines for those workshops. However, as an experienced worker expressed on the [_Dagongtan_ podcast](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/inDHf9RXFeRX0xFjqU8Qag?), these foreign orders weren’t exactly good deals for workers. Foreign brands usually have higher quality requirements, and thus lengthier process time. Meanwhile, the piece-rate remained the same. “The rate can’t go up anymore. The only way is to spend more time at work… Many of us get exhausted.”

The haste to resume work partially reflected a hint of optimism from the owners, who believed the business climate was going back on track. However, long-term threat for the business model looms, as newer, bigger competitors from surrounding cities emerge. On the one hand, the city of Guangzhou plans to move garment industries to Qingyuan, a nearby city, in order to clear up spaces for [urban renovation](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_21617265). On the other hand, cities in inner provinces now have [industrial parks](http://www.infzm.com/contents/240436) that take up larger batch orders. Workshops in Guangzhou are increasingly specialized in small-batch productions. But the need to quickly respond to brands’ needs had generally resulted in workers financially struggling.

More To Read:
- [The Uncertain Rhythms Of Life For China’s Migrant “Bosses”](https://www.noemamag.com/the-uncertain-rhythms-of-life-for-chinas-migrant-bosses/)
- [Toiling away for Shein: Looking behind the shiny façade of the Chinese “ultra-fast fashion” giant](https://stories.publiceye.ch/en/shein/)