China's 84 Million Platform Workers Could Get a Minimum-Wage Floor and a Rest Break After Four Hours

China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security released draft measures on Oct. 8 to protect workers in new forms of employment, with public feedback open until Nov. 8. Pay after a worker's own equipment costs could not fall below the local minimum wage, pay would be settled at least once a month, and anyone working four hours straight would get a rest break. China has approximately 84 million workers engaged in new forms of employment, the official term for people like food delivery couriers, ride-hailing drivers and online marketers. For Metaintro readers who drive, deliver or stream for a platform, the draft sets out who is in, who is out, what pay and rest would look like, and how an account ban could be challenged.

What Has China's Labour Ministry Actually Proposed?

The document is a draft set of Measures on Protecting the Rights and Interests of Workers in New Forms of Employment, released by the Chinese labour ministry for public comment. If adopted, it would bring workers who are managed by a company but whose arrangements do not fully meet the test for a labour relationship under the protection of the labour legal system. It would be the first time China has done so through departmental rules.

The draft was jointly formulated by seven central government departments, including the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Its scope runs from basic labour rights to rules on algorithms, employment arrangements, dispute resolution and the legal liabilities for violations.

The measures would only apply if adopted. A lawyer at the Beijing-based W&H Law Firm, Yao Junchang, said the measures will have legal force once they take effect. Members of the public can submit comments online via the ministry's website, by post or via email.

Who Counts as a Platform Worker Under the Draft, and Who Is Left Out?

The draft defines people in new forms of employment as internet-based workers who provide services under the labor rules and instructions of platforms and earn income from such work. The employers it covers include internet platforms and the labor outsourcing companies that cooperate with them. Many gig workers in China are employed as freelancers or through subcontractors.

The draft then sorts arrangements into three types (translated).

• A full labour relationship. Where the legal test for employment is met, labour law applies and the company must sign a labour contract.
• The new middle category. Where the test is not met but the platform organises work through labour rules and instructions, the platform and the worker should sign a work agreement, and a three-party agreement is needed if a third company jointly manages the worker.
• Self-employed people. Individuals who run their own business or freelance through an internet platform are outside the measures.

The measures are aimed at people such as ride-hailing drivers, food delivery workers and livestreamers.

How Would the Minimum-Wage Floor and Monthly Pay Rules Work?

The pay floor is measured after costs, since a worker's pay, once the cost of the means of production the worker supplies is taken into account, must not fall below the local minimum wage (translated). Gig workers would be entitled to the minimum wage under the proposal.

Payment timing is spelled out too, since the wage payment period must not exceed one month, and workers can withdraw pay on the agreed cycle without being charged a handling fee. Employers must pay workers' wages in full and on time in cash, and must not replace wage payments with reward points, goods or negotiable securities.

The draft also encourages positive incentives and bars the abuse of fines and other penalties (translated). Employers are also barred from withholding workers' identity documents without authorization or charging workers money, except for reasonable deposits or rent for means of production, and from discriminatory hiring standards based on factors such as ethnicity, gender or religious beliefs.

However, problems such as wage arrears, unreasonable overwork, inadequate workplace safety protection and opaque algorithms have emerged and drawn public attention, Wang Tianyu, a researcher at the Institute of Law under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said, according to the China Daily report.

What Do the Rest, Hours and Weather Rules Say?

Employers should specify and make public the maximum daily and weekly working hours, set reasonable workloads and allow workers sufficient time to complete assigned tasks. The draft asks companies to reasonably determine the longest daily and weekly working time.

Workers who work continuously for four hours should be given rest periods, and companies should guarantee appropriate rest after four hours of continuous work (translated).

People working on official public holidays should receive higher pay, and the draft does not specify by how much.

The draft calls for stronger protection of workers' personal safety during severe or extreme weather and requires employers to provide subsidies during periods of high temperatures. On insurance, the wording is conditional, since for workers covered by the nation's basic pension and medical insurance programs, employers should make the corresponding insurance contributions.

What Changes for Algorithms, Account Bans and Appeals?

Wang Tianyu, a researcher at the Institute of Law under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the draft requires companies to explain the basic principles and operating mechanism of their algorithms to workers, bans algorithmic discrimination, and says decisions such as stopping order dispatch or banning an account cannot be made automatically by an algorithm and must be reviewed by a human (translated). The requirements aim to prevent discrimination in the allocation of online orders and payments.

The draft also tells companies not to use significantly abnormal data as a general performance benchmark, and not to make decisions that harm a worker's major interests through an algorithm alone (translated).

If workers raise objections over payment, working hours, evaluation systems or platform penalties such as account suspension, employers should respond within 48 hours, and that reply should come from a human within 48 hours (translated). Outside the company, workers can complain to the regulator where they work, apply for arbitration or go to court, and can name both the platform and its partner firm as joint parties. They may also file complaints with local human resources and social security authorities.

Can Platforms Still Push Workers Into Subcontracting or Sole-Trader Status?

Under the draft, platforms would carry duties to select and supervise their partner firms, and if a partner company lacks lawful operating qualifications, the platform itself bears employer responsibility. The draft bans platforms from dodging that responsibility through layered subcontracting or by inducing workers to register as individual businesses.

Platforms including tech giants like Alibaba, Meituan and DiDi would be forbidden from encouraging gig workers to register as individual business owners to avoid signing contracts.

A manager at Alibaba's Taobao Instant Commerce platform pointed to its nationwide rider negotiation representative system and pledged to review its rules and algorithms against the draft, while a manager at DiDi pointed to its driver committee and the rights of its millions of drivers.

How Is This Different From April's Policy Framework?

On April 26, guidelines from the general offices of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council urged platforms and express delivery firms to set reasonable wages based on work tasks and labor intensity, and to ensure full and timely payment. April's framework for China's gig workers also held that workers must have the right to be informed about, participate in, and choose algorithm-related rules, and in April Chinese authorities also targeted 'substantial progress' in working conditions within three years.

The October draft would set specifics, such as a pay cycle of no more than one month, rest after four hours of continuous work and a human reply to complaints within 48 hours. It also has a longer history. At a January 27 press conference, the ministry set out a plan for China to draw up a measure on the basic rights of new-form workers to clarify labour standards and company duties, after guiding opinions from eight departments in July 2021 and three sets of ministry guidelines in February 2024.

Why Do Reports Give 84 Million, 200 Million and 280 Million Workers?

The figures count different groups, and the 84 million figure comes from the ninth national survey of the workforce by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, which put new-form workers at 21% of all employees. The same survey, run in 2023, found China had about 402 million workers, with roughly one-fifth in new forms of employment.

The larger numbers describe a broader flexible workforce, not only platform workers, and estimates of that flexible workforce vary, from more than 200 million as of last year, in a study co-issued by hiring agency zhaopin.com and Jinan University in February, to 280 million in 2025, counted by a think tank, the China New Employment Forms Research Centre. The draft leaves out people who run their own business or freelance through an internet platform.

The new regulation cannot address all the issues, but it at least establishes some important principles and puts in place several basic safeguards ..., He Wenjiong, a professor at Zhejiang University who specialises in social security, said, according to the South China Morning Post report.

How Does China's Draft Compare With the EU Platform Work Directive?

The two rulebooks meet on account bans. The European Union's Directive on improving working conditions in platform work, dated 23 October 2024, requires that any decision to restrict, suspend or terminate the contractual relationship or the account of a person performing platform work or any other decision of equivalent detriment shall be taken by a human being. China's draft reaches a similar place, since stopping orders or banning accounts cannot be decided by algorithm alone and must be reviewed manually.

The timelines for answers differ. Under the directive, a platform will have to answer a review request with a written reply without undue delay and in any event within two weeks of receipt of the request, while China's draft asks for a human reply within 48 hours. EU member states must bring their laws into line by 2 December 2026.

The scope is not identical. The EU text also gives people performing platform work the right to obtain an oral or written explanation for any decision taken or supported by an automated decision-making system without undue delay, while China's draft speaks of explaining algorithms to workers and the relevant authorities.

What This Means for Gig Workers, and What Should You Do Next?

The draft would set a floor for the working conditions of workers in new forms of employment (translated), and those minimum standards fall far short of the protections currently afforded to workers in formal employment, in the South China Morning Post's reading.

• Comment before the deadline. Members of the public can send views online via the ministry's website, by post or via email until November 8.
• Know which category you are in. If the platform organises your work through its rules and instructions but your arrangement does not meet the legal test for employment, the draft's middle category would require a work agreement. If a platform pushed you to register as an individual business, the draft would ban platforms from inducing that to avoid employer responsibility.
• Keep records now. Pay slips, deductions, equipment costs, hours and any account suspension notices are worth keeping if you use the complaint, arbitration or court routes the draft sets out.
• Watch the final text. The measures would apply if adopted and, a lawyer quoted by China Daily said, will have legal force once they take effect.

EU countries face a December 2026 deadline to bring in the directive, including human decisions on account bans. If you also drive for a platform outside China, learn what deactivated drivers can do after a platform cuts them off.

Related Articles

• Surge Pricing Is Quietly Squeezing Gig Workers, Here Is the Fix
• When the Algorithm Becomes the Boss: LanguageLine Interpreters and the New Fight Over Pay
• How India's Gig Workers Are Earning Money Training the World's Robots
• China Just Set a Legal Limit on AI Layoffs. Workers Everywhere Should Pay Attention
• China's Online Performers Are Losing Work to Their Own AI Doubles
• DOL Issues New Framework to Tackle Algorithmic Bias in Hiring
• Amazon Faces NLRB Ruling on Subcontracted Delivery Drivers
• Massachusetts vs. Uber and Lyft - Trial Over Driver Employment Status Begins

People Also Asked

Q: What pay would China's platform workers get under the draft rules?

A: Pay after a worker's own equipment costs could not fall below the local minimum wage, and the wage payment period must not exceed one month, paid in cash with no commission fees.

Q: Are China's new gig worker rules already law?

A: No. The labour ministry is inviting public feedback until Nov. 8, and a lawyer quoted by China Daily said the measures will have legal force once they take effect.

Q: Can a platform in China ban a worker's account by algorithm?

A: Not under the draft, which says decisions to stop orders or ban worker accounts cannot be made by algorithm alone and must be reviewed manually, with complaints answered by a human within 48 hours.

Know your rights. Metaintro brings together 50M jobs in one place. Create a free profile and start your search today.