Workplace accidents in China.
Major and well-publicised accidents in workplaces such as coal mines and chemical plants have damaged China’s international image and fed popular anger within the country about official incompetence and a culture of ‘bloodstained GDP’ that tolerates businesspeople putting ‘money before morality’. However, the number of workplace deaths fell by 8.6% last year to 34,600, according to official figures out this month, while the number of accidents fell by 6.5% to 49,000. The figures have declined continually each year for well over a decade.
A shift in employment from industry to urban services will mean more deaths from smaller, less dramatic accidents.
The government is determined to eliminate major accidents that make headlines, but largely ignores smaller ones.
Low-paid workers face additional hazards on journeys to and from work, and in dangerously cramped, poorly built housing.
White-collar professionals too are increasingly at risk of illness and even death from overwork.
