China has witnessed a sharp increase in labour arbitration cases in its southern export hub of Guangdong as exports shrink and jobs disappear, state media said on Thursday.
More than 60,000 applications for arbitration had been made in provincial capital Guangzhou this year, around the same number for the previous two years combined, the China Daily reported, citing the Guangzhou labour and social security bureau.
Thousands of Guangdong factories have folded under a series of blows including falling western demand for China-made goods, rising production costs and the strong yuan currency.
"About 60 percent of the claims are for back pay, with most of the rest being appeals for compensation from people who have been made redundant," Xie Yingjian, the director of the arbitration office of the bureau, was quoted as saying.
"The global economic crisis has led to the closure of many firms, especially labour-intensive ones, and pushed dozens of others to the brink of bankruptcy."
Chinese exports shrank unexpectedly in November by 2.2 percent on a year earlier as the world's fourth-largest economy became ensnared in the global credit crunch.
Guangdong, which handles around 25 percent of all labour disputes in China each year, has seen rising social tensions from the downturn including recent riots by laid-off factory workers and taxi-driver strikes.
"Because the economic crisis is forcing so many businesses to shut production, the government is worried … I'd say that about 60 to 70 percent of businesses here (in Shenzhen and nearby Dongguan) are in bad shape," said Jian Hui, a freelance labour organiser and workers' rights advocate in Shenzhen.
"Mostly factories have been letting go of only part of their workforce, but the way things look there'll be more and more mass dismissals next year."
In the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, white-collar city workers have also been grappling with grim employment prospects. Ah hom, 28, said he'd spent the past four months in a futile search for work after being laid off from his banking job.
"It very difficult to find a job right now. A lot of my friends have lost work or had their salaries cut," he said outside a teeming job centre.
Already, large numbers of laid-off factory workers from the province have been heading home at train stations for good.
Many migrant maids are skipping customary year-end visits home to pass Chinese New Year for fear of losing their jobs.
The maids face the twin pressures of falling demand for their services and rising competition as women recently laid off from factory jobs turn to housekeeping work.
"This year has been especially difficult because of long waiting times between jobs," said a woman surnamed Wan who works as a nanny near Beijing's wealthy business district.
The closure of a supermarket sparked a minor riot in a city in southern Hunan province, on Wednesday, the Beijing Youth Daily said in a report on its website (www.bjyouth.ynet.com).
Dozens of local suppliers mobbed the "Jia Jia Le" supermarket in Loudi, demanding to see its owner about unpaid bills, after hearing that a branch in a nearby village had closed.
Suppliers stormed into the supermarket to reclaim their stock, while "many bystanders took the opportunity to loot all the products", the report said, causing nearly 1 million yuan ($146,000) in damage.
China's economy has slowed sharply in recent months and the World Bank is forecasting just 7.5 percent growth in 2009, below the 8 percent threshold officials deem necessary to create enough jobs and guarantee social stability.
