Think of them as job centres. The landscape of cities in China is dotted with such “labour service companies”, “HR centres” or “talent shops”. But the service provided by one may well have led directly to an employee’s death, right here in our very own Jiangsu.
It was this Monday, 11 July, that the troubling news came to light of the stabbing of a female labour service company employee in Dongbang Town of Changshu City in Jiangsu’s Suzhou City.
It is understood that the assailant came to the labour service company looking for a job on Friday, 8 July. The company, which cannot be named for legal reasons, was able to find the assailant a job, beginning as soon as the following day.
Speaking with media outlet, The Paper, relatives of the victim said that the assailant is a male about 40 years old. He had later returned to the labour service company armed with a knife. A conversation took place for less than a minute, after which the fatal stabbing took place, reports The Paper.
Speculation abounds that the reason for the brutal killing to be dissatisfaction with the employee’s service on the part of the assailant.
The labour company employee had been alone in their office premises at the time of her murder. The company is said to have been operating for 3 years.
Details of the crime have been reported to Changshu Public Security Bureau. Further information cannot be disclosed at this point.
With a population of 51,961 at the end of 2019, Dongbang Town has been awarded the title of “Safe and Civilised Town in Jiangsu Province”, according to the Changshu Local Chronicles Compilation Committee.
Under China’s planned economy of the past, all employment used to be managed by government labour departments. But with the country’s opening up and deepening enterprise ownership reform, labour service companies sprang up to address a large surplus labor force, comprising the laid off and unemployed, as well as the large rural labor force flowing into urban centres.
