Economy

Unpaid workers recover wage with govt help

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-05-24 13:30

BEIJING -- China's labor department, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, on Monday announced local labor authorities helped recover due wages and other benefits worth nearly 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) for workers last year.

Figures released Monday by the ministry show the recovered wages and benefits, worth 9.95 billion yuan in total, involved more than 5 million workers.

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Delayed wage payment for workers, specially for migrant workers from rural areas, remains a major source of labor disputes in China.

Local labor departments last year also ordered employers to complete signing work contracts with 9.38 million workers, who previously did not have contracts.

Figures show the labor departments handled a total of 384,000 cases in 2010 involving delayed payment and the illegal use of labor workers. The number of cases was down 12.6 percent compared to the previous year.

The data released also shows the country's migrant workers from rural areas totaled 242.23 million by the end of 2010, of which 153.35 million worked in other regions away from their homes.