{"id":422821,"date":"2026-05-03T05:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T05:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/422821\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T05:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T05:16:10","slug":"chinese-court-rules-firms-cant-lay-off-workers-on-ai-grounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/422821\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese court rules firms can&#8217;t lay off workers on AI grounds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ai-to-help-fight-cybercrimes-against-kids-and-women.jpg\" alt=\"Chinese court rules firms can't lay off workers on AI grounds\" title=\"Representative image\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/> A Chinese court ruled that companies cannot terminate employees just to replace them with artificial intelligence systems, as authorities juggle the need to stabilise the domestic labour market with a global race to develop AI technologies.The court decided that a tech firm in eastern China had illegally fired one of its workers after he refused to take a demotion when his job was automated by AI, according to a statement by the Hangzhou Intermediate People&#8217;s Court. &#8220;The termination grounds cited by the company did not fall under negative circumstances such as business downsizing or operational difficulties, nor did they meet the legal condition that made it &#8216;impossible to continue the employment contract,'&#8221; the court said in the article dated April 28.Companies cannot unilaterally lay off employees or cut salaries due to technological progress, the court said in a separate statement, citing the same case.Chinese firms are racing to implement AI systems as part of a state-directed push to dominate the tech. At the same time, planners in the Chinese Communist Party have indicated a willingness to prioritise stability in the labour market as the country reckons with a slowing economy and elevated youth unemployment. (Bloomberg)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Chinese court ruled that companies cannot terminate employees just to replace them with artificial intelligence systems, as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,198952,343,344,198955,198951,85,46,198954,125,198953],"class_list":["post-422821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-ai-termination-laws","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-automated-job-replacement","tag-chinese-court-ruling","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-labour-market-stability","tag-technology","tag-worker-rights-in-china"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}