Shanghai Lockdowns Force Bankers And Traders To Sleep In The Office

As it turns out, China’s factory laborers aren’t the only ones who are being forced to quarantine at work (with many sleeping on factory floors with only a piece of cardboard as a mattress) during the latest round of “targeted” CCP lockdowns.

Bankers, traders and other white-collar workers on China’s Wall Street are also finding they have no choice but to ride out the lockdown at the office, as management demands that workers bed down for a long stretch without going home.

According to Reuters, “more than 20,000 bankers, traders and other workers are bedding down in office towers in Shanghai’s Lujiazui district as they bid to keep China’s giant financial hub ticking” during the first round of the city’s two-part staggered lockdown.

As the section of Shanghai east of the Huangpu River closes for a total of five days, finance workers are scrambling to make sure they can continue to work throughout the nine-day shutdown (which could be extended if case numbers fail to decrease). Teams have reportedly adopted 12-hour split-shift rotations in a financial hub that handled more than 2,500 trillion yuan ($292 trillion) of financial transactions last year.

A handful of local firms have confirmed the strategy, according to Reuters:

• Amundi BOC Wealth Management said its senior executives, as well as key investment, trading and risk-management staff are all working and sleeping in their offices. And they’re far from the only ones.
• Haitong Securities said Chairman Zhou Jie arranged emergency on-site duty shifts at its subsidiaries in Pudong on Sunday night before leading more than 150 key staff to work in offices starting Monday. The brokerage has also resorted to two-team rotation shifts between its two office areas, it announced.
• HFT Investment Management, BNP Paribas’ Chinese fund joint venture, has placed 52 workers in offices to work around the clock during the lockdown period.
• Sinolink Securities issued a notice on Sunday night calling on staff to rush back to its headquarters in Pudong before midnight, so as to “ensure continuity of system operation and trading”.