Letters | What drives the popularity of a Chinese comedy about lay-offs
- Readers discuss the prevailing mood of anxiety among China’s working professionals, the failings of democracy, and Western officials’ fixation with Hong Kong’s national security law
The highly publicised lay-offs started by certain tech giants drew wide attention and negative reactions. To avoid similar repercussions, some companies are undertaking hidden lay-offs.
As the term implies, companies do not openly declare that they are reducing staff to cut costs. Instead, they package the process as high-quality development or corporate optimisation, while quietly dismissing employees deemed unsuitable because of their age, educational level, salary or because they are challenging to manage.
Companies opt for quiet ways of letting go of personnel because they fear labour arbitration or a public backlash against outright lay-offs, but this has an adverse impact on the reputation of the human resources industry on the mainland. These measures typically start with assessments by the human resources department. Common practices include discouraging employees by labelling them as having too little work if they adhere strictly to the usual eight-hour work schedule, and claiming they either haven’t directly contributed value to the company or have failed to achieve abstract goals related to quality.
Some companies arrive at a compensatory amount and encourage employees to voluntarily resign to create a win-win situation. On the surface, the decision to leave the company appears to be the employee’s choice, rather than management’s.