In various regions of China, there has been a trend of reducing government positions while the recruitment of community “grid employees” is on the rise, according to a recent investigation by journalists. Some local governments within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have been charging each applicant a registration fee of 100 yuan (RMB) when recruiting for these grid positions, leading to suspicions of profiteering.
Based on the compilation of information from mainland Chinese social media, it has been observed that “recruiting grid employees” has become a hot search term recently. On July 31st, a netizen on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu posted an announcement from the Xincheng District of Hohhot City, stating plans to recruit 100 grid employees with a probationary salary of 2,270 yuan, which increases upon regularization but after deducting social security fees, the actual salary is just over 2,000 yuan. While this recruitment announcement may seem routine, it has garnered significant attention from prospective applicants.
A netizen on Xiaohongshu from Shandong mentioned that a street in Jinan recruited 74 people last year, receiving a staggering 3,700 applications in just 7 days, generating nearly 400,000 yuan in examination fees. This year in Neijiang, Sichuan, only 4 grid employees were recruited with a monthly salary of less than 2,000 yuan. On Douyin (TikTok), Harbin introduced positions for “financial grid employees” requiring applicants to have a college degree, with a monthly salary ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 yuan, and mandatory clocking in for work daily.
In recent years, as financial constraints have tightened across mainland China, investment in infrastructure and public services has been cut, leading to delays in the payment of salaries for teachers and sanitation workers in some regions, with delays ranging from 3 to 6 months. However, the recruitment of grid employees is still considered a “priority project”.
Zhao Liang (pseudonym), a rights activist from Zaozhuang, Shandong, revealed in an interview with journalists: “The official employees of the street office have a monthly salary of over 4,000 yuan along with corresponding benefits, while all the tedious and dirty work is passed on to the grid employees. The grid employees have low wages but are burdened with running errands, handling various checks, and producing reports, keeping busy from morning till night.” He further disclosed that during this year’s population census, grid employees were required to go door-to-door for visits at a moment’s notice.
Over the weekend, a netizen in Harbin posted in a WeChat group that during anti-fraud propaganda campaigns by the community committees, grid employees were mandated to achieve the hard target of “locating 36 specific individuals from overseas areas,” regardless of the feasibility in reality. Some in the group questioned whether if one couldn’t find 36 specified individuals, would they have to fabricate results to meet the task? Someone responded, asking if they had such capabilities, why would they be working in the community?
“Grid employees perform tedious tasks with the aim of ‘maintaining stability’,” stated Mr. Li, an economist from Qingdao, in an exclusive interview. “On the surface, grid employees appear to be ‘caring for residents’, but in reality, they are extensively collecting household information, which is off-putting. They often inquire about personal matters, such as recent travel plans or vacations, making people uncomfortable.”
As a researcher on Chinese social issues, Mr. Li pointed out that the official bundling of collecting residential information with stability maintenance tasks by the CCP could cause resentment among residents. Local government officials, in pursuit of achievements, disregard residents’ feelings: “This behavior clearly deviates from universal human values.”
According to data released by the CCP’s Ministry of Finance, in the first five months of 2025, the national total general public budget income decreased by 0.3% year-on-year, amounting to approximately 9.66 trillion yuan. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in the United States predicts that this year, China’s total general public budget income is around 24 trillion yuan, down by about 2% year-on-year, while budget expenditure has risen to 29.7 trillion yuan, resulting in a deficit of nearly 5.7 trillion yuan, expanding by approximately 39%.
Mr. Li analyzed that fiscal austerity should prompt the reduction of non-essential expenditures, but due to the need for stability maintenance, grid employee positions are continually expanding at the local level: “Despite the relatively low wages and high turnover, the government keeps recruiting new people to reduce overall expenditure costs. For example, Qingdao cleared out a batch of ‘unqualified’ grid employees in February this year, only to urgently recruit new replacements soon after.”
Information retrieved from online sources indicates that grid employees themselves are facing pressure. Earlier this year, a grid employee in Chongqing complained on Douyin about salary delays of two to three months, with several netizens sharing screenshots claiming, “There is no money to pay salaries, but stability maintenance tasks continue as usual.”
The CCP’s grid employee system originated as a pilot project called “grid-based management” in Dongcheng District, Beijing, in 2004, gradually expanding nationwide since 2009. Today, grid employees are not only responsible for collecting resident information and mediating neighborhood disputes but also are tasked with family planning, united front work, and recruiting CCP members, incorporating political duties. In the midst of financial crisis within the CCP, this position has become an essential element of the stability maintenance machinery, exposing the real priorities of local governance, where livelihoods can be delayed, yet stability maintenance must be strictly enforced.
Mr. Lu, a scholar from Henan, stated that local governments outsourcing grassroots governance tasks to low-paid grid employees and auxiliary police temporarily alleviates the pressure on internal staff but in the long run, it leads to instability within the grassroots governance workforce, and even poses risks of disintegration. He expressed to journalists, “Some grid employees even exploit their identities to collect residents’ income information, colluding with fraudulent groups to deceive and harm the public.” He also cautioned that without effective supervision and accountability mechanisms, once resident information is leaked, avenues for seeking justice are nearly cut off entirely.