A spate of violence aimed at Chinese street hawkers is highlighting China’s weakening employment situation, Financial Times reported. Employment in the export-oriented manufacturing sector has contracted for 13 months, according to a government manufacturing sector survey published Thursday. Conflicts between “chengguan” – auxiliary police tasked with keeping city streets clean and orderly – and street vendors are not new, but the rising unemployment in China’s vulnerable low-income population has seen a particularly violent two weeks, and the death of one vendor. The implication of chengguan brutality in the death of Deng Zhengjia, a watermelon vendor, on July 18 sparked national outcry.