Contents

This page has a glossary of concepts for Chinese law in the hiring and training topic.

You can learn more about this subject at CBL’s China employment & labor law FAQ here.

Hiring

Employment Assistance

In Chinese employment law, employment assistance refers to a range of subsidies and services designed to help persons who have difficulty obtaining employment. The China Employment Opportunity Act defines difficulty obtaining employment as unemployment due to reasons including health, job skills, or family conditions, or general chronic unemployment, which is defined specifically by local governments. In China, difficulty obtaining employment primarily occurs due to disability or age over 40; statutory provisions about, for example, farmers leaving agricultural land are increasingly outdated.

Employment Services

In Chinese labor law, the government must provide public employment services that help people find jobs. The specific services are offered on a not for profit basis and include job placement, vocational training, and job skill preparation.

Foreigner’s Work Permit

In Chinese employment law, a foreigner’s work permit is required for any foreign workers who are working in China for more than three months, including if they are paid outside China or have been temporarily dispatched by an employer outside China. Foreigners are eligible if they have necessary technical or management skills that are otherwise lacking in China.  A foreigner’s work permit is generally valid for one year, but there are two-year and five-year talent visas available.

An employer may only hire a foreigner who has obtained both a work permit and a residence permit, thus these are usually obtained together. A work permit is tied to a particular employer, so a foreigner that changes employers must obtain a new work permit.

HR Services

In Chinese employment law, HR Services include consulting, evaluation, training, and outsourcing.

Job Duties

In Chinese labor law, job duties are legal obligations imposed on a worker which are exchanged for their right to payment. The obligation to perform and complete their duties is both legal and mandatory in China, failure to do so implies breach of the employment contract and entitles the employer to terminate the employment contract.

Job Placement

In Chinese employment law, job placement programs refer to a set of government programs involved in helping individuals find work, typically for more recent graduates who need to find programs that have on the job training.

Job Requirements

In Chinese employment law, job requirements refer to the requirements that an employer has for a job, which are agreed to in an employment contract and serve as the basis for deciding to extend the employment relationship past the probationary period.

Unemployed Worker

In Chinese employment law, an unemployed worker is a person who is able to work but has been terminated by their employer and now has no job, is looking for a job, and whose file has been transferred to their precinct or town’s labor regulator office. The Unemployment Insurance Administrative Regulations limit this definition to persons who were previously employed.

The definition also excludes retirement age persons who are unable to work, or disabled persons whose disability evaluation shows they are not fit to work. Thus, “unemployed worker” does not include injured or mentally ill people. “Looking for work” is defined to include those who are attempting to, but cannot yet find, suitable work due to reasons beyond their control; the definition excludes people who are not trying to find a job.

Temps

Staffing Agency

See full article here.

Staffing Agency Permit

See full article here.

Staffing Client

In Chinese employment law, a staffing agency is an organization that provides staffing services to a client; there is no employment relationship between the employee and the staffing client, rather they provide services to the client. The client is responsible for providing lawful working conditions, job site safety, managing the work, and establishing a compensation structure.

The legal relationship between the client and the employee is a service relationship, not an employment relationship. China does not recognize joint employer status, unlike other jurisdictions in Europe or North America. Rather, China imposes joint and several liability on the staffing client as to the employment law obligations of the staffing agency.

Terminology
In Chinglish, this arrangement is described as using a labor dispatcher to dispatch laborers to a unit. The Chinglish word “dispatch” was originally adopted and localized from the English word “assignment,” and simply means that the staffing agency provides work assignments and not the work itself.

Staffing Agreement

In Chinese employment law, a staffing agreement provides for the terms under which a staffing agency will assign workers to a client. The parties to the agreement are the employee, the staffing agency, and the client. Organizations often have staffing shortfalls that require provision of temporary workers, and the need can be met by a staffing agency that provides work assignments to workers it employs, and in some cases, they will be converted to permanent employees of the client.

Part-Time Employment

See full article here.

Training

Job Training

In Chinese labor law, job training refers to education and training necessary to provide workers with practical skills for their job role.

Job training is provided to workers and employees. Job training in China is provided to new employees and also to vocational school students; new employees can be required to sign a job training cost repayment agreement if they quit early. Job training in China is a different system from general education, though nonetheless included as an important part of its educational system. Rules about job training are included in the China Employment Act Sections 66-69.

Community Service

In Chinese labor law, community service is unpaid service freely provided with no minimum hours requirement.

Retention Period

See full article here.