How one company’s choice – resignation or the factory – left China’s young workers floored

The outlook for China’s young jobseekers could worsen further, after an ugly fallout from Xingyu’s mass dismissal of university graduates

Two of the firm’s top executives received salary deductions and two human resources managers were dismissed or demoted for their “misjudgment and hasty decision-making”, the company said in a lengthy statement detailing its recent “mistake” last week.

They could either resign “voluntarily” and receive half a month’s salary, or stay and be reassigned from office-based technical roles to factory-floor work, including tightening screws.

According to the firm, 107 chose the former option. But the uproar that ensued has placed the company firmly in the centre of a media firestorm, with Communist Party news organ People’s Daily calling the move “a blatant trampling of social trust” in a commentary late last month.

While neither the firm nor local authorities specified any violation of labour law by the short-term manoeuvre, which coincided with its application for a listing in Hong Kong, its adverse effects were evident, the analysts warned.