Tag: Labor and Jobs

In a Faltering Chinese Economy, Working-Class Stories Strike a Chord

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A Chinese food delivery driver rushes from gig to gig, measuring time by the number of jobs he completes instead of by the passing of the seasons. He toils in cities across China to send money back to his family, but has been away for so long that his son calls him “that man” instead of “Dad.” These are scenes from the poems of Wang Jibing, a food delivery driver, one of several Chinese poets and authors who have turned their experiences of repetitive factory labor and insecure gig work…

‘They Don’t Need People’: The Workers Left Behind by China’s Robot Drive

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The park was in the center of China’s richest county. Willow trees clustered around a well-manicured pond. Joggers in performance gear circled shiny new playgrounds filled with children. But in a quieter part of the park, Hu Xinbing was resting after another day of trying, unsuccessfully, to win his share of the local prosperity. After failing to find a job that morning, Mr. Hu, 31, lay behind some bushes, using a windbreaker as a pillow, and waited until he could try again the next day. Around him, about a dozen…

China’s Plan to Save Jobs From A.I.

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A Chinese lab recently unveiled another astonishingly powerful and astonishingly cheap artificial intelligence model. GLM-5.2, produced by Z.ai, is almost as good as Anthropic’s latest model but runs at less than a tenth of its price. The A.I. race between the U.S. and China has been front of mind at the highest levels of government in both countries. But creating the most potent model is not the only — and maybe not even the best — way to measure A.I. success. Today I write about an area that’s had less…

China Wants A.I. to Flourish, but Not at the Expense of Jobs

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When a Chinese court ruled late last month that a tech company had illegally laid off a worker after replacing him with artificial intelligence software, it delivered an implicit warning to other employers. “The development of artificial intelligence technology should be applied to liberating labor, promoting employment and improving people’s livelihood,” the Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court wrote. “Labor law allows employers to undertake technological changes and upgrade their operations, but it should also take into account the protection of workers’ legitimate rights and interests. The case — the third time…

The Town That Reveals All of Trump’s Bad Economic Ideas

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The first time I set foot in Hickory, a small city at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, the area’s beauty hid its sorrow. Forests rich in oak, maple and pine have given birth to dozens of furniture companies that employ thousands of workers. Hickory’s factories craft the kind of heavy, solid American furniture that is meant to last generations. But everything changed in 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organization. The surge in Chinese imports devastated Hickory and other small factory towns like it.…

Uyghur Workers Are Moved to Factories Across China to Supply Global Brands

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By David Pierson, Vivian Wang and Daniel MurphyGraphics by Pablo Robles. Produced by Nico Chilla and Rumsey Taylor May 29, 2025 China’s mass detention and surveillance of ethnic Uyghurs turned its far western region of Xinjiang into a global symbol of forced labor and human rights abuses, prompting Congress to ban imports from the area in 2021. But the Chinese government has found a way around the ban — by moving more Uyghurs to jobs in factories outside Xinjiang. A joint investigation by The New York Times, the Bureau of…

Why Elon Musk Needs China

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When Elon Musk first set up Tesla’s factory in China, he appeared to have the upper hand. He gained access to top leaders and secured policy changes that benefited Tesla. He also got workers accustomed to long hours and fewer protections, after clashing with U.S. regulators over labor conditions at his California plant. The Shanghai factory helped make Tesla the most valuable car company in the world and Mr. Musk ultrarich. But Tesla is now struggling. Mr. Musk helped create his competition, Chinese E.V. makers that are taking market share…

Young Chinese Embrace ‘Gross Outfits’ at Work

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When the weather turned cold in December, Cindy Luo started to wear her fluffy pajamas over a hooded sweatshirt at the office. Wearing cozy sleepwear to work became a habit and soon she didn’t even bother to wear matching tops and bottoms, selecting whatever was most comfortable. A few months later, she posted photos of herself to a “gross outfits at work” thread that had spread on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese app similar to Instagram. She was one of tens of thousands of young workers in China to proudly post pictures…

Volkswagen and BASF Are Reconsidering Ties to Xinjiang, China

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Volkswagen Group is reviewing the future of its joint venture in the Xinjiang region of northwestern China and another German industrial giant is starting to sell its stakes there following new international scrutiny of forced labor by predominantly Muslim ethnic groups. Volkswagen said last week that it was in discussions with one of its main joint venture partners in China, the state-owned Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, in the wake of allegations of human rights violations at their joint venture in Xinjiang. The companies are examining “the future direction of the…

Welcome to ‘Dalifornia,’ an Oasis for China’s Drifters and Dreamers

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To find the dance circle in the bed-and-breakfast’s courtyard, drive north from the bedsheet factory converted into a crafts market, toward the vegan canteen urging diners to “walk barefoot in the soil and bathe in the sunshine.” If you see the unmanned craft beer bar where customers pay on the honor system, you’ve gone too far. Welcome to the Chinese mountain city of Dali, also sometimes known as Dalifornia, an oasis for China’s disaffected, drifting or just plain curious. The city’s nickname is a homage to California, and the easy-living,…