Forget about remote work. China’s banks and investments ask its essential staff to live at the office this week during Shanghai’s lockdown. The traders were offered between 500 and 2,000 yuan ($78 to $314) per night to camp out at work. Some companies are placing folding beds on their employee’s desks. Others provide sleeping bags, food, and toiletries.
This past Sunday, China announced going into lockdown. It will be the biggest city-wide lockdown since Covid-19 started. The city will be locked in two stages for nine days while authorities do Covid-19 tests.
Investment and Banking Employees are Living in the Office Due to Lockdown
According to the Chinese firm Zhong Ou Asset Management, several of its investment directors and fund managers stayed overnight earlier this month to ensure that operations kept going as the pandemic escalated.
Another firm, Foresight Fund, said some of its staffers had been staying at the office since mid-march. According to CNN and a post on WeChat:
“Weekends are no exception. They bring daily necessities and call the company home.”
In March, Shanghai emerged as the new epicenter of China’s worst outbreak in two years, reporting over 25,000 cases.
Chinese employees started familiarizing themselves with living at work. Another company in the country said that they had over 75 employees living in 3,230 square feet of space. The only problem most employees have experience is in terms of showering, as many offices don’t have showers, just regular bathrooms.
Living in the office became even more normal in China, as the country has a practice of imposing lockdowns at any given time of day, sometimes even shutting entire office buildings with people still inside, even if it’s just one covid-19 case.
