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China's factory activity shrank again in December as demand at home and abroad slackened, a purchasing managers' survey showed on Friday.

"While the pace of slowdown is stabilising somewhat, weakening external demand is starting to bite," said Qu Hongbin, China economist at HSBC.

China's once turbo-charged economy is on track to slow for a fourth successive quarter, easing further from the first quarter's 9.7% annual growth rate with economists expecting the final three months of the year to have slipped below 9.5%.

A brawl involving as many as 2,000 workers forced Foxconn to close its Taiyuan plant in northern China late on Sunday, and left a number of people needing hospital treatment.

The Taiyuan plant, which employs about 79,000 workers, makes parts for automotive electronics and assembles various electronic devices, according to Woo. Other staff sources said it makes parts for and assembles Apple's new iPhone 5, released last week.

Under the “Partnership Agreement for Promoting Technical Cooperation with a Focus on South-South Initiatives”, the People’s Republic of China is committing US$1 million over three years to support South-South cooperation and the Decent Work agenda. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People’s Republic of China will assist developing countries in Asia promote full employment and decent work, through innovative technical cooperation projects that will facilitate the dissemination of good practices.

The agreement makes China the second of the so-called BRICS countries (Brazil, China, India, the Russian Federation, and South Africa) to sign a South-South agreement with the ILO.

Since the advent of market reforms, provisions for social insurance have been scattered throughout a patchwork of rules and regulations implemented at the national, provincial, and local level, including the 1995 Labour Law and 2008 Labour Contract Law. The passage of the Social Insurance Law in 2010 established the first comprehensive social insurance law in China, aiming to consolidate existing rules and regulations under a standardized national social security framework. Although some specific implementation details are established in the law, such as the contribution terms required in order to be eligible for pension and unemployment benefits, the Social Insurance Law functions more as a statement of broad principles, leaving most of the implementation details for future clarification via additional regulations at the national and local level. The law repeatedly affirms the policy established in the Labour Contract Law, that social insurance benefits remain with workers if they move to different locations, however as is discussed below, this principle has proved very difficult to implement on the ground. And enforcement of the law in general remains very lax, meaning that many workers are denied the social security benefits they are legally entitled to.

The walkout has highlighted a difficult balancing act as Singapore’s falling birth rate forces it to rely on foreign labour to keep its decades-long economic miracle, envied round the world, on track. The influx of migrant workers from China and Bangladesh has caused friction as “heartlander” Singaporeans have complained about crowded public transport and competition for housing.

The number of independent contractors has increased rapidly since the labor contract law was revised in 2007 to provide better protection for employees, said Uzhitu, vice-chairman of the NPC Finance and Economic Committee

Under the current law, employers can hire contractors to do temporary, supplementary or backup jobs. The proposed revision creates a clearer definition for these conditions. The bill also includes an article requiring agencies and employers to follow the principle of "equal pay for equal work" when negotiating payment for their contractors.

A SURVEY by Tsinghua University of college graduates' income has once again attracted attention. It found that 69 percent of students who graduated in 2011 were paid less than 2,000 yuan (US$314) a month for their first job. Meanwhile, the National Statistics Bureau said migrant workers' monthly wages reached a record 2,049 yuan a month in 2011.

Stephen Schwartz, chief economist-Asia at BBVA Research in Hong Kong, said he doesn’t see declining exports as a systematic problem at this stage because there’s enough demand on the domestic front. In the future, he said, it’s going to be very important for China to move to higher-valued added manufacturing and to increase productivity in order to offset higher wages. Although it’s a very slow process, he added, China’s ability to catch up quickly and do things quickly is always underestimated.