China’s official holiday ends, but not the woes of its firms

RED BANNERS and an enormous QR code flank the iron gates of a compound for recruitment agencies in Waigaoqiao, a north-eastern district of Shanghai. “Scan with WeChat and get jobs”, the banners urge visitors, who are normally migrants from the countryside. In any other year, on the first day of work after the lunar new-year holiday, people would stream to this complex after celebrating the festival in their ancestral villages. But this time, on February 10th, it was all but deserted.

One firm, Yongbing Labour, had reopened. But its boss said only three people had made inquiries there, compared with over 100 on the first day back last year. Maybe the lack of jobseekers was for the best. He said he had found no work even for those three. In fact, he had received no requests from any factory for labour, and was thinking of closing for the rest of the week.