Upgrading of domestic service sector welcome

Editor’s note: The State Council, China’s Cabinet, recently released a guideline encouraging domestic service providers to sign labor contracts with their employees and offer social security to them, so more people will be attracted to work in the sector and meet the fast-growing demand for better domestic services. Two experts share their views on the issue with China Daily’s Yao Yuxin. Excerpts follow:

Development of sector will create more jobs

The rising aging population and the inability of many people, thanks to work pressure and changing lifestyles, to look after their aged parents and/or take care of a second child have dramatically raised the demand for household workers and caregivers.

Finding qualified nannies to take care of aged people and/or young kids has always been difficult. Worse, many nursery maids have been caught on close circuit TV cameras mistreating the elderly and babies.

One such nanny was Mo Huanjing. She started a fire in the living room of an apartment in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, two years ago hoping to put it out quickly and please her employer to get a fat reward which would help her pay her heavy gambling debts. But the fire quickly spread out of control and killed her employer and the employer’s three children. Mo was convicted of starting the fire and causing the deaths of four people, and sentenced to death last year.

The main reason for the dearth of skilled and well-behaved nannies is the lack of a specific regulation on household workers and household service companies. Household service providers in China are more like matchmakers; they introduce households to nannies but have no obligation to give them pre-job training. They cannot be held accountable either in case a nanny ill-treats a child or an elderly, or causes damage to property.

The State Council guideline, however, makes it clear that household service companies have to hire domestic workers as full-time employees by signing labor contracts with them, which will compel them to check the antecedents of their employees and give them pre-job training. This will not only allow people to avail of skilled household workers but also protect the workers’ rights.

Besides, the development of the household service sector will create jobs, and since many household workers are from rural areas, it would help lift many families out of poverty.

Jiang Ying, dean of law school at the China University of Labor Relations

Division of labor behind rising demand for nannies

The household service sector’s annual revenue has been increasing on average 20 percent over the past few years. In 2018, the revenue of the sector, which had about 30 million domestic workers, increased 27.9 percent to 576.2 billion yuan ($83.8 billion), according to the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic planner.

The demand for domestic workers, however, is still high, as a growing number of Chinese people can afford to hire nannies to take care of their kids or aged parents. To meet the demand, the guideline says, China will train 5 million people for the housekeeping sector by the end of 2020, and ensure all cities with a population of more than 5 million have the facilities to provide training for domestic workers by 2022.

The division of labor has raised the demand for nannies. And to meet the demands of different customers, a household service company should focus on one or two kinds of household work and train recruits accordingly — for instance, it can train a worker to take care of young kids, the aged or the disabled.

Moreover, a labor union can play a critical role in helping make regulations that domestic workers need to follow; it can also help redress the genuine grievances of workers so they can enjoy their rights such as receiving at least the minimum wage and getting paid leave for a certain number of days every year.

Also, rather than household service companies, a third-party evaluator should determine whether a domestic worker is skilled enough for a particular job, in order to ensure the supply of skilled domestic workers.

That the guideline says every province should have at least one college offering majors in household services will facilitate the rolling out of more housekeeping diplomas in technical schools, which in turn will promote scientific management of the industry and cultivate talents to meet different households’ demands.

Tang Jun, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

The views don’t necessarily represent those of China Daily.

Also, rather than household service companies, a third-party evaluator should determine whether a domestic worker is skilled enough for a particular job, in order to ensure the supply of skilled domestic workers.