When young people have both stable income and leisure time to rest peacefully, they are truly able to step out of the office and become the most vibrant part of the consumer group.

Written by Ding Hui

The system of “only 5 days of annual leave for those with less than 10 years of work experience” has once again become a hot topic of public discussion.

This year’s “Two Sessions,” National People’s Congress delegate Wang Yucheng proposed promoting the revision of the “Paid Annual Leave Regulations for Employees,” increasing leave based on years of service, and strictly implementing the double rest days system, so that young people can “have leave, dare to consume.”

The reason this suggestion quickly trended on social media is because it touches on a deeper social issue: do contemporary Chinese young workers truly have leisure time?

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From a policy perspective, China’s paid annual leave system was established in 2008. According to regulations, employees who have worked for at least one year but less than ten years are entitled to five days of annual leave each year. While this design may have had practical reasons at the time, it now appears somewhat rigid given today’s employment landscape.

Today’s workforce mainly consists of young people with less than ten years of experience. They face multiple pressures from rent, mortgage, education, and living costs, yet only have very limited vacation time. More realistically, these five days of annual leave often cannot be fully utilized in many companies.

This has led to a rather strange situation. On one hand, society continues to discuss “countering involution” and “expanding consumption,” hoping that young people will travel more, spend more, and contribute to GDP growth; on the other hand, many young people are in a state of “no leave, cannot take leave, dare not take leave.”

Against this backdrop, the practice of Pan Donglai, a regional retail company, offers an alternative perspective.

In recent years, Pan Donglai has frequently been discussed in public discourse as a “model company of workers’ dreams.” Interestingly, its typicality lies in its “atypical” approach—not winning by scale, but known for good employee treatment.

The average monthly salary, after social insurance and housing fund deductions, is about 9,000 yuan, which is high in the industry; employees work 7 hours a day, no more than 36 hours a week; annual paid leave reaches 40 days, comparable to vacation times in developed European countries; and each employee can receive a profit-sharing bonus of 200,000 yuan on average.

Among companies where monthly salaries are around 5,000 yuan or even where basic statutory leave rights are difficult to realize, Pan Donglai truly stands out as a breath of fresh air. Of course, the company’s ability to invest so much in employee benefits is largely due to the personal philosophy of its owner, Yu Donglai.

Yu Donglai’s approach has sparked discussion because he challenges a common societal mindset—that corporate profits and employee benefits are a zero-sum game. He also proves that when employee welfare is effectively protected by制度, it can actually stimulate stronger work motivation, and the company can still thrive.

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Interestingly, during this year’s “Two Sessions,” amid heated discussions on working hours and leave, Pan Donglai released a survey result that sparked public debate, creating a fascinating contrast with the “less than 10 years of work, only 5 days of annual leave” narrative.

On February 23-24, Pan Donglai conducted a survey among its employees asking whether they would be willing to “increase leave and reduce salary,” and announced the results on March 8. The survey covered 10,214 employees with a response rate of 94.83%, indicating it was a serious and effective survey rather than a mere formality.

The results showed that over 80% of employees refused to accept salary cuts in exchange for more leave, preferring to maintain the current 7-hour workday and 40 days of paid leave. While some are still anxious about fighting for the statutory 5 days of annual leave, Pan Donglai’s employees already have the confidence to make rational choices between “more money” and “more leisure.” This fully demonstrates that when income and rest are both fundamentally guaranteed, people have more options.

Of course, in reality, many “workers” in other companies still lack this choice.

From a broader economic perspective, this also relates to changes in social consumption structure. For a long time, people have regarded “production capacity” as the core development indicator, but in today’s economic environment, the real scarcity is not capacity but consumers with spending power.

Factories can expand, production lines can upgrade, and technology can iterate, but if there are no willing consumers, even the most advanced production capabilities cannot translate into real demand. Many companies have to “push outward,” relying on foreign trade for profits over the long term.

This is precisely the current dilemma faced by many industries: capacity keeps increasing, prices keep falling, and companies fall into “involution” competition, yet goods still can’t be sold.

In such a scenario, if workers lack sufficient income and free time, they naturally cannot become stable consumption forces. The idea of “expanding domestic demand” often remains just a slogan.

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This logic is not unfamiliar in the history of the global economy.

After World War II, the U.S. economy experienced a “golden age” of consumption lasting 20 to 30 years. Many attribute this prosperity to technological progress or industrial upgrading, but the deeper reason was the large-scale expansion of consumer capacity.

At that time, the U.S. used union systems, wage growth mechanisms, and social welfare programs to bring many ordinary workers into a stable middle class. They not only had income but also leisure time.

The weekend system became widespread, and paid leave became standard. Housing, cars, appliances, and travel saw rapid growth, forming a huge domestic demand market. The goods produced by enterprises were bought by their own workers; workers’ consumption, in turn, supported companies to continue expanding production. Production and consumption formed a positive cycle.

Behind this is a simple economic logic: in early industrial society, scarcity was in production capacity; after capacity became highly developed, the scarcity shifted to consumers.

Today, many industries in China are gradually entering this stage. Manufacturing capacity continues to grow, efficiency increases, but consumption growth has noticeably slowed.

Many companies are still desperately expanding capacity, suppressing costs, and engaging in price wars, but they overlook a fundamental question: if workers lack money and time, how can they become genuine consumers?

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Today’s China faces the same logic. Most young people are both “workers” and consumers. If their leisure time is excessively compressed and income growth remains slow, their consumption power will naturally be difficult to unleash.

Travel, entertainment, and many service industries are fundamentally time-based consumption. Without leisure time, even the most favorable policies cannot effectively stimulate young people’s willingness to spend.

Therefore, discussing the annual leave system is not just about workers’ rights but also closely related to the economic structure. A more sufficient and practically implementable leave system can improve workers’ quality of life, ease long-term overtime stress, and create more stable demand in tourism, entertainment, and other service sectors.

Of course, reform is not simply about giving a few more days off. In reality, many companies still face operational pressures, and some small and medium-sized enterprises worry that more leave will increase their burdens. Truly feasible reforms require both制度保障 and corporate incentives: ensuring through labor inspection that double rest days and annual leave are enforced, and using tax, social security, or policy incentives to reduce corporate concerns about implementing leave policies.

Improving the leave制度 fundamentally reaffirms the value of labor. A healthy consumer society often features a large middle class with an “olive-shaped” structure. If workers lack both time and spending power, society risks falling into a vicious cycle of high production and low demand, ultimately harming both enterprises and markets.

From this perspective, giving young people more leave is not just a welfare issue but a long-term social investment. When young people have both stable income and leisure time, they are more likely to step out of the office and become the most energetic consumers.

In this era, capacity is never a scarce resource; what is truly scarce are consumers willing and able to spend.

This article is an original piece by Glacier Think Tank. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited and will be subject to legal action.

Author’s note: The personal views expressed are for reference only.