China’s job market is probably getting tighter as quickly as the economy grows, thus the story. Translated from the Yangtze Evening News (Êâ¨Â≠êÊôöÊä•):
In Binhai County (滨海) of Yancheng (盐城) in Jiangsu Province, the urban hygiene administration (环境卫生管理所) meant to create some job opportunities for relatives of its employees by hiring about 40 street-sweepers.
But this good-will job creation then turned into something outrageous: asking job seekers to put down 5,000 or 8,000-yuan job-start deposits before they can be hired. How much do these street-sweepers make? Starting 380 yuan a month, and 520 yuan after a try-out period.
Among the 39 positions, 25 people have paid their deposits, unwillingly of course. Most of them had to loan money from friends or relatives. Over a dozen of other job aspirants couldn’t come up with such a big sum and gave up the job. For those who haven’t paid up the deposits in full, they will be short-paid every month, by 200 yuan a month, until their required deposits are fully paid.
The good news, the only one maybe, is that after five years the deposits plus interests will be returned to the sweepers. The head of the hygiene agency said the deposits were required to make sure the new hires don’t jump ship too soon or have others to fill in their jobs. (This could also bring quite some handsome revenue to his agency.) [Full Text in Chinese]
