actices. At the end of the 1990s, the affluent workforce on the labor market gave birth to employment agencies. Employment agencies – paiqian songsi – recruit workers – pianqian gong – and send them to user companies – yonggong danwei. Since there was no regulation in this area, appeal to outside workers spread immensely. The difference in treatment based on the status of workers within businesses became common practice, with businesses openly implementing different working conditions for their own employees and employees sent by employment agencies.
Attractive, appeal to outside workers spread to all trades, even to local governments, and employment agencies thrived. There are no actual reliable statistics in this area, but it appears that the number of temporary employees exceeded 27 million, which represents 15% of all employees in the industry and services.