Story By: John Feng, Sub-Editor:  Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report

AsiaWire

This footage shows Chinese factory workers sitting around after demand from Europe and the United States dried up amid the coronavirus pandemic.

A second video eerily shows the empty factory floor after the company went out of business just a few days later.

Scenes such as the ones filmed inside Hangzhou Lorom Electric and Cable Co Ltd, in East China’s Zhejiang Province, are said to be playing out “across the country” despite Beijing’s attempts to restart the economy last month.

Footage shared by Lorom staff shows them sitting idly by assembly lines that are no longer pushing out products for the original equipment manufacturing sector, which came to a standstill in January and February as all production was suspended due to the outbreak.

Their work, which usually involves bulk orders of products such as computer cables or phone chargers, has not returned despite the Chinese government’s announcement of a gradual restart of industries last month.

This is reportedly a result of the coronavirus outbreak badly affecting Europe and the United States, halting demand from China – the ‘factory of the world’ – and forcing supply chain businesses such as Lorom, which employed 10,000 people – to shut its doors after 24 years.

Images from the factory floor showed employees living off instant noodles before they were laid off en masse.

According to a social media post by former Lorom employee Yu Dunlan, she and her colleagues were recalled to the assembly line on 6th March.

However, they sat around “for days” waiting for work before they were all dismissed on 21st March and signed for severance pay two days after that.

Employees said they were told Hangzhou Lorom is to be relocated, but it was unclear if and when the new factory would open.

China’s textile and electronics manufacturers such as Lorom, which owns other plants in Shenzhen and Beijing, are bearing the brunt of the global economic downturn.

China accounts for a third of the world’s manufacturing, but, according to Bloomberg, the country was operating at just “60 to 70 percent” capacity at the end of February.

Its economic growth is expected to take a big hit in the first half of 2020, reports said.

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