Employment in Asia-Pacific
Asia-Pacific employment law bulletin 2023
A jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction guide
Welcome to the 2023 edition of our Asia-Pacific employment law bulletin.
Since the beginning of the pandemic in December 2019, global employers have had to adapt to rapidly changing regulations, legal requirements and restrictions. In 2022, however, most jurisdictions around the world started to relax pandemic related measures and focused their attention on co-existence with Covid-19. In particular, the dramatic shift away from the “zero-Covid” strategy in China (which was one of the last countries to still maintain strict Covid measures) at the end of last year signaled a clear “post-pandemic” era.
The pandemic caused an unprecedented shift in the way that we work and our mindsets, which in turn led to a new focus on certain areas of law and regulation. For example, interest in and awareness of human rights issues and protection from discrimination has certainly increased in the past few years. There is also a renewed focus on flexible / agile working and mental health and wellbeing.
For this bulletin, we have once again collaborated with our StrongerTogether colleagues to identify key employment law developments in the APAC region. Important amendments and new legislation have been enacted in many jurisdictions in the past few months, addressing remote and hybrid work or enhancing protections against discrimination and harassment. The recent trend towards regulating gig workers is also of particular importance.
As always, we hope you enjoy this update. Please get in touch with us or reach out to your usual Freshfields contact if you would like to discuss any of the issues in our bulletin in more detail.
Our team
Kathleen Healy Partner
London
Stephanie Chiu Counsel
Hong Kong
Ada Chan Associate
Hong Kong
Fan Li Associate
Shanghai
River He Associate
Shanghai
