REPORTING. "Half of our team was laid off" : in China, the solar panel industry is going badly
Cairo: Hani Kamal El-Din
On the surface, everything seems normal here in the outer suburbs of Xi’an, in front of this huge factory of the Longi group, the world leader in solar panels. The site is working, we can see the workers starting their shifts. China is by far in the lead in this sector. Its solar panels are flooding markets in Asia, America and Europe. But the Chinese have invested so much that they are now faced with a worrying phenomenon of overcapacity. Chinese solar giants are forced to lay off a large part of their workforce.
As the Longi group did not wish to welcome us inside its Xi’an factory, we questioned the employees. This first young woman confirms to us that the factory is in the process of letting go of part of its staff. “At the moment there are layoffs. Half of our team has been laid off. I don’t know yet if I will be affected, but maybe it will be the case.”she says.
This employee who is finishing her shift confirms to us that the activity in the factory already has nothing to do with that of last year. “Before, we could only take very little vacation. During Covid, we even worked 30 consecutive days. Today, it’s only four days of work per week and three days of rest, and a lot of people are on vacation or have been sent to other factories. I heard that production will soon stop here.
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