"Chinese companies in trouble withhold wages and illuminate economic challenge", 18 Jan 2016

…Qiu and more than 100 of his fellow workers on a luxury residential development…have not been paid, despite repeated assurances from their sub-contractor…He is owed more than 30,000 yuan ($6590) in backpay…As the disgruntled workers unfurled banners and called for management to face them, the company's sales department locked its gates and called in security. Rumours started to spread among workers that their boss had pocketed their money and ran…

Withholding wages is a common tactic employed by Chinese companies in trouble…China Labour Bulletin recorded 2774 separate strikes and protests for the year [2015], double the number of incidents in 2014, with more than two-thirds of all disputes recorded related to the non-payment of wages…

…Economists point to a growing credit bubble as a ticking time-bomb as a result of delayed reforms, and the bloated state-owned sector remains too inefficient. And there is the issue of what role unskilled and uneducated workers left behind in the old economy can play. Steel and coal producing towns across China are in the doldrums, while reports of factory closures in the southern manufacturing hubs of Guangdong and Zhejiang proliferate…