China sees 5.6% increase in labor disputes for Q1-3, study shows

Labor protests on the mainland ballooned in 2014 in both scale and frequency, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The state-backed think tank said in an annual study on social trends that labor disputes “remain the most prevalent form of social conflict,” with roughly 522,000 labor arbitration cases handled in the year’s first nine months, up 5.6% from the same period a year earlier. In contrast, cases had declined in 2013, when cases fell 0.8% from the 2012 total. (See CER’s recent report on China’s spike strike for more in-depth analysis of the issue.)