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May 27, 2020

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Resumption of work brings joy to migrant staff

The experience of work disruption during the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic has made people like Mi Zhen, 36, scared of losing his job.

The employee of China’s electric bike manufacturer, Aima Technology Group Co, said a month-long home quarantine during the nationwide epidemic control measures in February, weighed on his family life. He said he and his wife could barely make ends meet with their salaries from the company to pay for a mortgage and car loans of more than 7,000 yuan (US$985) a month.

Since Aima started to select employees from low-risk epidemic areas to restart work on February 15, he and his wife, who hail from eastern Shandong Province, immediately drove for six hours to return to the company in northern Tianjin City. They were able to secure their former positions after the mandatory 14-day quarantine period.

Like Mi, some 900 workers rushed back to the company via various car-pooling means in order to secure their jobs.

The epidemic has had a great impact on the lives of the working class. At the Tianjin-based scooter company, over 90 percent of its employees are migrant workers.

In the face of the labor shortages, the company (with a former workforce of over 3,000 people) had to recruit more than 300 migrant workers from northwest China’s Gansu Province, 1,000 kilometers away and considered a low-risk region during the outbreak.

Among the new workers, Zhang Xinling, 33, said she had worked in Beijing as a saleswoman at a shopping mall, while her husband was a driver in a courier company.

The couple returned home to Gansu during the Spring Festival in January. They failed to retain their jobs in Beijing after they could not return to their posts on time, due to delays resulting from the epidemic control measures. These were aimed at reducing large passenger flows to prevent cross-infections.

“Aima’s job offers are important for us to raise three kids and support two senior people in my family,” Zhang said, revealing that the company offers her a monthly salary of 6,000 yuan with free boarding and meals.

Li Shizhi, executive director of Aima, said the firm currently employs 3,100 people, which is on par with the scale before. Its production lines are operating at full capacity to catch up with orders, with a daily output of 15,000 e-bikes.

According to the municipal bureau of industry and information technology, as of May 18, the work resumption rate of 197,500 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in Tianjin reached over 95 percent. Over 2.5 million employees, or 94 percent of the total number of workers they employ, have resumed work.




 

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