{"id":331671,"date":"2026-05-09T06:33:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T01:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=331671"},"modified":"2026-05-09T06:33:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T01:03:29","slug":"china-has-outlawed-firms-from-ai-based-layoffs-should-canada-follow-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/09\/china-has-outlawed-firms-from-ai-based-layoffs-should-canada-follow-national\/","title":{"rendered":"China has outlawed firms from AI-based layoffs. Should Canada follow? – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A Chinese court ruling that outlaws firms from demoting or firing employees solely to interchange them with artificial intelligence has reignited the talk over the technology\u2019s impact on labour markets \u2014 and whether Canada is failing to reply quickly enough.<\/p>\n

The ruling, posted online last week<\/a> by the Hangzhou Intermediate People\u2019s Court, sided with a senior technology employee who was offered a reduced salary and job transfer when his employer sought to automate his role with AI. The employee\u2019s employment was terminated after he refused the offer.<\/p>\n

The case clarified that \u201cthe event of artificial intelligence technology is meant to liberate labour, promote employment, and profit people\u2019s livelihoods,\u201d the ruling says.<\/p>\n

\u201cLabour law allows employers to undertake technological changes and upgrade their operations, but it surely also needs to consider protecting the legitimate rights and interests of staff,\u201d it added, noting businesses should prioritize retraining and \u201creasonable\u201d reassignment and compensation plans for staff over termination.<\/p>\n

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The ruling comes as businesses all over the world are adopting AI for efficiency and value effectiveness at a breakneck pace, sometimes on the expense of employees.<\/p>\n

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In North America, tech firms equivalent to Block have begun explicitly citing AI as the rationale behind significant layoffs, which labour experts have told Global News is the most recent step in a decades-long trend of automation moving from blue-collar to white-collar industries.<\/p>\n

The Chinese court ruling doesn\u2019t change that trend, said Moshe Lander, an economics professor at Concordia University, but it surely does underscore the necessity for some type of regulation.<\/p>\n

\u201cShould you\u2019re attempting to decelerate the inevitable, you\u2019re doomed to fail,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI feel what\u2019s rather more necessary is to acknowledge, that yes, (AI-fuelled automation) it\u2019s coming, there have to be some kind of protections in place, but not necessarily protections of your job. It\u2019s protections of your income or protections of your ability to live\u201d and work alongside AI.<\/p>\n

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Indeed, the Chinese ruling doesn\u2019t forbid firms from using AI to automate certain roles held by humans, it just mandates that it\u2019s done responsibly.<\/p>\n

Staff, the ruling says, \u201calso needs to understand the strategic development needs of enterprises, repeatedly update and improve their skilled skills through continuous learning, proactively adapt to the changes in artificial intelligence technology, promote the efficient application of AI technology in production practices, and foster a win-win situation of non-public profession growth and efficient enterprise development.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lander said the ruling, which was issued ahead of China\u2019s Labour Day on May 1, was likely a messaging and \u201cself-preservation\u201d exercise for the ruling Chinese Communist Party given the potential widespread impact of AI-led labour disruptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so many potential folks that might be caught up on this that the danger of civil unrest, the danger of regime overthrow, might be rather more paramount to them than concern for the actual employee itself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Canada, we\u2019re a democracy and we\u2019re not necessarily anxious about regime overthrow in the identical way, apart from through the ballot box.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simon Blanchette, a management faculty lecturer at McGill University who researches AI and the long run of labor, said that democratic structure would also make legislating and enforcing the same ruling in Canada extremely difficult.<\/p>\n

He noted provinces, municipalities, industries and unions would all must play a task within the creation and execution of such guardrails.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBy way of practicality and the actual final result and externalities of it, it stays to be seen what can be the profit tangibly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel there other ways we might be exploring to assist staff more, and have a more \u2018AI-ready\u2019 future.\u201d<\/p>\n

That features educating and reskilling staff for a future where AI is adopted across industries, he said.<\/p>\n

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Yet Lander noted that social safety net programs like employment insurance also needs to be modernized to acknowledge certain industries will probably be disproportionately impacted by AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the federal government is admittedly attempting to implement something that\u2019s meaningful, that\u2019s going to take us through the subsequent 50 years, it\u2019s loads greater than protecting staff\u2019 rights,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s desirous about which staff\u2019 rights really need protecting and which of them are we just sending out to be slaughtered within the battlefield.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Canada\u2019s Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon said this week that the promised latest federal AI strategy will consider the technology\u2019s impacts on the labour market.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re ensuring that once we launch this strategy, there\u2019s a component \u2026 that it’ll meet the changing needs of labour and all of the stakeholder groups,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Solomon said the strategy will probably be released \u201cvery soon,\u201d after previously promising it could come at the top of last yr after which in the primary quarter of this yr.<\/p>\n

He said the impact of AI has been changing and he continues to be consulting on the strategy, citing recent meetings with labour leaders, environmentalists and young people.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven once we did our consultations, the industry has modified dramatically. The impact of AI has modified and we’re consulting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Experts like Lander and Blanchette, in addition to others Global News has spoken to recently concerning the delayed strategy, agree that the federal government must step up its urgency in enacting guardrails around AI and its myriad, society-wide impacts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI today is as weak as it’ll be in our lifetime,\u201d Blanchette said. \u201cTomorrow it’ll higher, the day after it’ll get well. So we’d like to face the (inevitable).<\/p>\n

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\u201cAt the identical time, yes, we’d like laws. We’d like to guard the general public.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014with files from the Canadian Press<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Chinese court ruling that outlaws firms from demoting or firing employees solely to interchange them with artificial intelligence has reignited the talk over the technology\u2019s impact on labour markets \u2014 and whether Canada is failing to reply quickly enough. The ruling, posted online last week by the Hangzhou Intermediate People\u2019s Court, sided with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":331672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20691],"tags":[3593,6192,43,4634,2295,172,1903,44975],"class_list":["post-331671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-aibased","tag-canada","tag-china","tag-companies","tag-follow","tag-layoffs","tag-national","tag-outlawed"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331671"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":331674,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331671\/revisions\/331674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}