CNA – A restaurant owner in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu Jordan Li hopes desperately that next month’s Chinese New Year holidays will help him make up for business lost this year because of COVID-related travel and other restrictions.
Although infections have risen sharply since the central government lifted most of its pandemic-control curbs this month, Li thinks people will still travel to Chengdu. He envisions a different problem: A lack of workers to handle the demand.
Li said he is preparing for a worst-case scenario in which he single-handedly keeps his restaurant open as he “can be the boss, the chef, the waiter and handle the finances all at the same time”.
Stung by the repeated pandemic-related disruptions to his business in the past three years, he does not want to hire staff until operations return to normal.
Li’s predicament underscores challenges for China’s economically crucial services sector as it bets on a post-COVID revival.
With the virus spreading unchecked across the country now, representatives from the services sector said frequent lockdowns have left them without money to expand.
They also must deal with a growing number of sick workers, especially ahead of and during the Chinese New Year next month, a peak travel period in China, when millions head home to celebrate with families.
The contact-intensive services sector, which accounted for 53.3 per cent of China’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021, suffered the most amid the country’s anti-virus curbs, which shut down many restaurants and restricted travel.
Beijing this month dismantled almost all such curbs, which have battered the USD17 trillion economy.
“There is still a shortage of labour in the services sector in the big cities, and the loss of productivity is quite obvious,” said Chief Economist at Hang Seng Bank China Dan Wang.
“That situation won’t improve significantly before Chinese New Year, and the rebound isn’t happening simultaneously, but city by city”.
Ordinary Chinese and travel agencies said a return to anything like normal will take months, given worries about COVID and more careful spending because of the impact of the pandemic.
