Tan Yingzi reports in the China Daily:
Firms in Shandong and Hubei provinces that want to lay off 40 or more workers have been told they must first apply for approval from their local human resources and social security authorities, the Legal Daily reported on Sunday.
The order, released last Tuesday, is an amendment to the national labor contract law, which came into force in January and states that all companies that want to lay off more than 20 employees must first get approval from their labor unions and report their layoff scheme to the labor authorities.
Provincial authorities have now decided to launch the order in response to the global financial crisis, and in the wake of several cases of company bosses from Shandong, Guangdong and Zhejiang, fleeing their responsibilities and leaving workers stranded, Wang Kexing, head of the unemployment and social insurance section of the Shandong human resources and social security department, told China Daily Monday.