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Forget bike sharing: China tries employee sharing during pandemic
With the coronavirus hitting restaurants hard, can sharing workers with ecommerce sites help?
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This article originally appeared on ABACUS
When the coronavirus outbreak exploded in China in late January, restaurants and karaoke parlors were forced to abruptly shut down. For workers around the country, the halt to business meant that many suddenly found themselves trapped in an uncertain future: Will my company stay afloat? Will I keep my job?
Not every business has been in the same predicament, though. As people who hunker down at home switched to buying groceries online, supermarkets with online stores have become an unlikely winner in the pandemic. And with the boon came a reverse problem: These companies needed more manpower to pack orders and deliver purchases to customers.
What if the empty restaurants could share their surplus workers with supermarkets?
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That’s exactly what happened. Alibaba’s grocery chain Freshippo, also known as Hema, said it hired hundreds of excess workers from restaurants, karaoke bars and ride-hailing firms in Shanghai, Beijing and other Chinese cities. JD.com’s 7Fresh also rolled out its own “employee sharing” program with restaurants.
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(Abacus is a unit of the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba.)
Even online employment platforms have jumped in. Jianzhimao (meaning Part-Time Cat), which normally targets college students seeking part-time jobs, introduced an employee sharing program in partnership with the Guangdong branch of the Communist Youth League. It matches struggling businesses with companies that need additional workers.
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