"Chinese manufacturers’ shift to flexibility leaves gig labourers exposed", Financial Times, 20 November 2025

Officially, Chinese companies are only supposed to employ a maximum 10 per cent of their staff on a short-term basis. But analysts say that in recent years, the proportion of temporary workers in the manufacturing sector has crept up, making life more precarious for a huge swath of the workforce and undermining labourers’ ability to learn new skills.

[...] a study by Peking University academic Zhang Dandan estimated that there were approximately 40mn short-term workers in the manufacturing sector by 2024, or about 31 per cent of the total. Previous surveys from five provinces suggested that the proportion of flexible workers was 20 per cent in 2017, after exhibiting a “significant upward trend” in the previous seven years, she wrote.

[...] Most day workers and many agency labourers do not have contracts or workplace insurance and are clustered in the most low-skilled part of the production process, such as the final assembly of electronics.

[...] some factories can employ as many as 70 per cent of their workers on a temporary basis during peak seasons, although an absolute number is difficult to pin down.

[...] some factories turned to the country’s network of vocational schools to send trainees or interns to meet their staffing needs. Renewed scrutiny of the use of vulnerable student workers has only pushed the practice underground, [...].