Mar 3, 2009

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Labor Lawsuits Nearly Double – in China

Layoffs, massive reductions in pay and benefits and new laws burdening and confusing employers led to a 95% increase in employment-related lawsuits from 2007 to 2008. 

Sound familiar?  

Well, sorry.  Those statistics didn’t come from the U.S. Department of Labor.  They came from the Supreme People’s Court of China, according to AFP. 

Lawsuits nearly tripled in some eastern and southern coastal cities during the period… partly due to companies taking cost-cutting measures in their struggle to pull through the financial crisis.

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Some companies also cut jobs in response to … [a new law that] requires employers to offer open-ended contracts to employees who have worked for them for 10 years or more or have completed two fixed-term contracts. 

It also mandates companies to make larger contributions to pension and insurance funds, the China Daily said.

Finally, to really put a 95% uptick in litigation for China’s courts into perspective, note that the report says about 20 million migrant workers lost their jobs in China last year.  And that’s just factory workers. 

A DOL report from last week shows the estimated total Americans out of work is hovering around 5 million.