We surveyed, evaluated and analyzed the organizational work conditions from the aspects of working time, workplace, work reward and employee participation after describing the basic characteristics of urban workers in China from 2019 to 2020. From the above statistical analysis, the following conclusions are made.
To begin with, the annual survey characterized China's urban workers from the aspects of basic demographic structure characteristics, employment status, unit type and industry distribution. Specifically, both sexes are about equally represented in urban workers according to the research on the basic demographic structure characteristics. However, the male worker’s technical title, organizational self-evaluation and monthly income are significantly higher than the female’s. Moreover, most of the male worker serves the company with public ownership, while the female worker works for the private sector in most cases. China's urban workers, on average, are 35 years old, with over 60% ranging from 31 years old to 49 years old. The elderly account for 3.92%, 86.96% of which is the aging female worker. Besides, regarding the educational background, urban workers in China are distributed in the olive shape, that is, more in the middle, less on both sides, 30.48% of whom have bachelor's degrees, contributing the most. In terms of employment, 84.09% of the urban worker are employed by individuals or units, among them, 74.95%, 93.07%, 77.27% and 66.02% are in the Northeast, East, Central, and West Regions of China, respectively. Concerning the unit type, 33.36% of the urban workers take on a job in private enterprises, which is much higher than the portions in other types. In addition, those workers working in the primary industry, the secondary industry, and the tertiary industry make up 0.85%, 24.11%, and 24.11%, respectively. Among those engaging in the secondary industry, 72.23% of the workers use non-agricultural products as raw materials, presenting the highest ratio. By comparison, the worker in the tertiary industry is spread out across job fields, with commercial, service and financial and insurance ranking the top three sectors.
Then, we summarized the workplace, working time, work reward, and employee participation of urban workers in China from 2019 to 2020.
Above all, the workplace. From 2019 to 2020, urban workers in China mostly worked indoors, with the proportion of indoor-based work and outdoor-based work reaching seven to one. To be specific, 41.49 % of the urban workers work in offices, with 27.72 % in half-inside places, such as shopping malls, classrooms, and clinics. More than that, those working in the workshop, the outdoor environment or field, and family account for 16.66%, 12.00%, and 2.13%, respectively. Compared with the previous two years, the proportion of outdoor workers decreased slightly with the moderately increased number of migrant workforce, due to the outbreak and large-scale spread of COVID-19. Besides, the working condition was also studied, 13.36 %, 12.46 %, 4.69 %, 3.92 %, 2.42 %, 20.70%, and 9.88% of which are with dust, physical hazards, toxic chemicals, radioactive substances or toxic organisms, psychical risks, and the superposition of multiple physical risks, respectively. Since the employing unit is duty-bound to provide protection equipment to their employees who work in a physical working condition with any risk sources, 78.15% of the worker has free labor protection products. Still, there are roughly 20% of those failing to gain protection support. With respect to the impact of the working condition on the worker’s health, about 9.06% of the workers consider that they work in an unhealthy working condition, with 7.38 % holding the opposite view.
Secondly, we stress the working time. From 2019 to 2020, China’s urban workers worked 25.14 days per month and 8.96 hours per day on average, with the standard deviations of 4.70 and 1.93, respectively. Among them, the male worker has 25.33 working days per month and 9.19 working hours per day, both of which are longer than that of the female. The relationships between education background and monthly working days as well as between education background and daily working time are approximately presented as jagged patterns. To be concrete, those with low levels of education have more monthly working days and daily working time; those engaging in the construction industry, the catering industry, the manufacturing industry with agricultural products as raw materials, the handicraft industry, the service industry need to work more days per month. Moreover, the urban worker working overtime in China accounts for roughly 42.73 %, about 65.73 % of whom work overtime on weekdays, with 79.31 % on weekends and 46.65 % on holidays. We also found that 33. 39 % of the workers volunteer to work overtime, while 66. 61 % are forced to do so. Apparently, China’s urban worker has no standardized working time. In other words, a considerable number of workers work beyond the prescribed range of nine-to-five office routines with two-day weekends in China according to the overtime situations and the work shift arrangement.
Thirdly, the work reward is analyzed. The situation from 2019 to 2020 for China’s urban workers is presented below. i. Compared with the data in 2017 and 2018, the average monthly income of the worker is 6127.74 RMB, showing a wavy trend of first rising and then falling. ii. The groups with an income of less than 2000 RMB, between 2,000 and 5,000 RMB, between 5000 and 10000 RMB, and more than 10,000 RMB account for 7.87 %, 52.84 %, 31.09 %, and 8.20 %, respectively. That is to say, more than 90 % of the workers receive less than 10,000 RMB, the average monthly income. iii. In terms of income structure, the overall level of the monthly wage income in 2019 tends to be higher, which has changed significantly compared with that in 2017. And the rugby shape is shown in all these years, that is, there are more middle income groups, with fewer groups in both ends. Overall, most of the workers are heading for higher income groups, with an increasing proportion of middle-income and higher-income groups. Now the middle-income group is the basic of urban workers. iv. Workers have a positive evaluation toward their incomes as a whole, since 47.83 % of the workers are satisfied with their incomes, with 11.16 % dissatisfied. v. Pension insurance, industrial injury insurance, and medical insurance cover 70 % of the workers, while half of them have maternity insurance and unemployment insurance. Regarding the ''Insurance and Housing Fund'', its coverage is to be lifted, since some workers are out of the coverage. vi. More than 50% of the workers have statutory holiday leave, sick leave, family visit leave, and marriage leave, while the proportion of workers receiving vacation and recuperation benefits is the lowest. vii. In the case of shared welfare facilities, more than half of the worker's employing units provide canteens and collective dormitories; 40% to 50% of the worker are provided with infirmaries as well as activity centers, with 30% to 40% enjoying facilities such as library reference rooms, sports fitness facilities, and public bathrooms in their working units.
Fourthly, employee participation is analyzed. From 2019 to 2020, more than half of China’s urban workers do not participate in decision-making, other than the allocation of work tasks. The relative data indicates that 20% to 30% of workers provide participation opinions in decision-making, with 10% to 20% being able to make decisions with others and less than 10% being able to make decisions alone. Most employees can only participate in some basic decisions-making like daily work task allocation. Instead, a smaller number of workers are capable of being involved in higher-level decisions, such as employees dismissing and development direction determining. It can be found that many employing units provide no guarantee for employee participation for labor unions and workers' congress, the important channels, are deficient in nearly half of the workers’ employing units, together with the lack of the board of directors, board of shareholders, and board of supervisors in half of the units. In various channels of expressive participation, group meetings, group discussions, department meetings, QQ groups, and WeChat groups account for a high proportion. Among the urban workers in China, 31.29 % of workers have the opportunity to participate in decision-making; 46.15 % can communicate frankly with leaders; 38.43 % have the opportunity to express their opinions on job improvement; 85.27 % are more concerned or very concerned about the work in the organization; and 77.01 % are willing to express their views on what happened within the organization. The favorable participation atmosphere is demonstrated with the mean value of the participation atmosphere variable being 69.62. After the percentile conversion of participation in decision-making, the number is distributed between 25 and 100, with a mean value of 43.33. On the whole, China’s urban workers have low levels of participation in and low impact on decision-making of the employing unit.