China’s urban unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percentage points last month to stand at 5.3 percent at the end of July.

There have been at least eight strikes and protests by sanitation workers in cities across China since 1 May this year, accounting for ten percent of all service sector incidents recorded on CLB’s Strike Map.

The Ministry of Emergency Management has issued a “statistical analysis” of major accidents in China that pinpoints August as being the most dangerous month of the year. 

The revelation in the Beijing News last week that a vocational college in northern China had sent its students to intern over the summer at a local amusement park has highlighted once again the long-standing exploitation of interns in China.

There have been at least three collective protests by workers in China’s troubled automotive industry in the last week, related primarily to mass layoffs, wage arrears and unpaid compensation.

In the second major accident in China’s chemical industry this week, two people died after a fire broke out yesterday at the Huludao Tianqi Shengye Chemical plant in the north-eastern province of Liaoning.

Community doctors and teachers in China’s poor rural counties have been pushed to the limit and are now taking collective action to defend their rights.