Under these laws, it is virtually impossible for a firm with 100 or more employees to fire the workers even in the face of bankruptcy. It is equally difficult for the firms to reassign the workers from one task to another. These provisions impose very low worker productivity or a high real cost of labour. Large-scale capital-intensive sectors such as automobiles, where labour costs are a tiny proportion of the total costs, can profitably operate in such an environment. But the same is not true of large-scale labour-intensive sectors labour.
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/01/china-fact-of-t.html
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/01/china-fact-of-t.html