Several significant employment-related regulations have recently taken effect — or will soon take effect — in China. For multinational corporations and domestic enterprises alike, long-standing local practices and conventional HR assumptions are being challenged by statutory updates, nationwide judicial harmonization, and increased regulatory data sharing. Below is a brief overview of the key developments and what they mean for employers operating in the region.
Engaging the Aging Workforce: Over-Age Employees and the Retirement Age Reform
Following decades without change, China’s phased deferral of the statutory retirement age has fundamentally restructured workforce demographics and retirement timelines. Alongside these adjustments, authorities have addressed the historical ambiguity surrounding workers who continue working beyond legal retirement age. Historically, once employees reached legal retirement age, courts generally treated the labor relationship as terminated or otherwise converted the employment relationship into a civil service arrangement, leaving those individuals largely outside standard statutory labor protections.
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