JILPT Research Report No.222
Research on Labor Law Regulations on New Forms of Employment and the Criteria for Determining Worker Status in China

March 31, 2022

Summary

Research Objective

This research aims to shed light on the criteria for determining worker status and the full scope of new forms of employment under Chinese regulations from the comparative law perspective and provide implications to the Japan’s legislation.

Research Method

Meetings of a study group and literature review

Key Findings

  1. Personal subordination, economic dependence, and organizational subordination are generally thought as attempts to understand the concept of worker in different perspectives. In China, in contrast, it has been misinterpreted that these three perspectives are the requirements to be met to constitute the employment relationship due to a vague introduction of the concept by Taiwanese labor law scholars.
  2. Employment law in China affords, in principle, platform workers who partially satisfy the employment relationship certification requirements, freedom to decide with the platform operators on the types and the contents of the contracts to be concluded. Additionally, it has established the system that reasonableness of the content of the contract is guaranteed under the guidance of the relevant government department. It also explicitly indicated that these platform workers are workers under the Trade Union Law.

Research Period

April 2021 - March 2022

Researcher and Assistant

Zhong Qi
Vice Senior Researcher (author), The Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training
Wu Che-yi
Assistant Fellow (resource acquisition), The Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training

Contents

Category

Diversified working styles, Working conditions / Work environment, Labor laws / Working rules

Related Research

  • Discussion Paper 21-06, China's "Quasi-Employment Relationship" and the Criteria for Determining Employment Relationship. (2021)
  • JILPT Research Report No.202, “New Forms of Employment” and Worker Protection under the Sharing Economy in China: Problems in Regulation and Practice. (2020)
  • Discussion Paper 18-04, Current Status of Sharing Economy in China and Labor Law Issues. (2018)

JILPT Research Report at a Glance

GET Adobe Acrobat Readeropen a new window To view PDF files, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader Software installed on your computer.The Adobe Acrobat Reader can be downloaded from this banner.