Xu, the migrant worker seeking physical gig work at the Xinqiao site, is a case in point. He has no social insurance in Shanghai. No contract. No pension contributions.
There is an option for workers to pay into Shanghai’s employee social insurance as flexible workers. But they would have to cover both the employer’s share and their own.
For someone earning 200 yuan a day with no guarantee of work tomorrow, this would be tantamount to, as Sun put it, “asking someone who can barely survive to save”.
An occupational injury insurance pilot, initially targeting platform workers like delivery riders, covered 23.25 million people across 17 provinces as of October 2025, according to a State Council report.
