Coronavirus: China’s small businesses ‘still losing blood’ despite creative means of retrieving stranded workers

Sunwill in China’s Guangdong province has been able to bring back 60 per cent of its staff by sending buses to neighbouring provinces, cutting the quarantine to five days

As of the start of last week, around 26,000 or half of the provinces major industrial firms with annual revenue of more than 20 million yuan, had restarted production

4-MIN READ4-MIN

Sunwill has so far been able to restore its staffing levels to around 60 per cent, after around 700 workers returned from an extended Lunar New Year holiday and nationwide lockdowns to control the spread of the coronavirus. Photo: He Huifeng

Published: 3:00pm, 23 Feb 2020Updated: 11:14pm, 23 Feb 2020

Every day over the past week, Sunwill human resources director Felix Luo has been busy sending long-distance coaches to neighbouring provinces to pick up employees from their hometowns to bring them back to their factory in Guangdong that produces air conditioner fans for the likes of Panasonic, Toshiba and Gree.

The chartered buses, sent to the likes of Guangxi and Jiangxi, mean workers will be able to return to the production lines in five days, and not the mandatory 14 days quarantine required by the authorities for those using public transport.

Sunwill has so far been able to restore its staffing levels to around 60 per cent, after around 700 workers returned from an extended Lunar New Year holiday and nationwide lockdowns to control the spread of the coronavirus.

Sunwill has brought back more than 100 workers by coach over the last week, with the company cautious about recruiting new employees due to the risk still posed by the coronavirus, which has infected over 75,000 people in China, Luo said, during a round of factory visits organised by the Guangdong provincial government.

The biggest difficulty to fully restoring production capacity is the lack of workers. We have thought of a lot of ways [to find workers]

Mo Yiyan

For new employees, some villages in China have not even allowed workers to leave unless they find an employer who will cover transport costs, while others have warned workers that they will not be allowed to return if they choose to leave in search of work.