Wage defaults in the spotlight across China

Chinese authorities are ramping up their war against employers who don’t pay their staff, particularly migrant workers transitioning between rural and urban areas.

The country will carry out a winter campaign over wage defaults, from November until the Spring Festival, spokesman Wang Cheng has told local media.

Malicious wage default has been a crime since 2011, and employers who intentionally withhold wages can face sentences of up to seven years imprisonment.

Adding to this, since 2017, China has been blacklisting employers involved in wage defaults, downgrading their credit ratings and disqualifying them from some tender processes.

In the first half of 2019, a total of CNY 4.2 billion yuan (US$612 million) of wage arrears was recovered and paid to around 443,000 workers, official data has revealed.