WORKERS LEFT TO SLEEP IN OFFICE BUILDINGS
BEIJING: A leading lobby group for global financial services firms has pleaded with Shanghai authorities to let hundreds of exhausted employees go home after a month-long Covid lockdown that has kept them in office buildings.
The Asia Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association said authorities should let financial firms rotate staff who needed to work from offices.
More than 20,000 bankers, traders and other workers have had to sleep in office towers in Shanghai’s Lujiazui district as they sought to keep China’s giant financial hub running during lockdown.
Restrictions have kept most of the 26 million residents of China’s most populous city housebound since April 1 and also halted production at thousands of factories, causing disruption to supply chains and weighing down the national and global economy.
Staff sleeping in offices were given air mattresses, pillows and blankets, and had to rely on limited facilities. They have not been able to step outside since March 28.