As if 2016 hadn’t been hard enough for China’s workforce¹, an annual survey has revealed that more than half of the country’s white-collar employees got no year-end bonus ahead of the upcoming (and costly) lunar new year holiday.

仿佛是2016年对中国员工还不够艰难，一项年度调查披露，中国逾半数白领雇员在即将到来的（开销巨大的）农历春节假期来临前没有领到年终奖。

The survey of 11,500 workers by Chinese employment agency Zhaopin found that 50.9 per cent did not get an annual bonus at the end of 2016. Another 9.6 per cent were told their bonus had been delayed until after the new year holiday.

一项由中国职业介绍机构智联招聘(Zhaopin)对1.15万名员工开展的调查发现，2016年底有50.9%的员工没有拿到年终奖。还有9.6%的员工则被告知年终奖会推迟至春节假期后发放。

Prior² to the slowdown that began in 2014 employers in China had been less stingy with cash bonuses, which can total well over a full month’s salary and send employees back home for the holiday with plenty of cash for gifts to elders and other family members (or to squirrel away as savings).

在2014年开始的这轮放缓之前，中国的雇主对于奖金没有这么吝啬。奖金的数额会大大高于一个月的薪水，让回家度假的员工能拥有足以为长辈和其他家庭成员购买礼物（或存为积蓄）的现金。

The impact of sluggish³ growth on year-end payouts may have peaked in 2015, however, when 66 per cent of white-collar workers received no year-end bonus. And the 2016 level actually represents an improvement from 2014, when 61 per cent had to go without.

不过，增长疲软对年终奖的影响或许在2015年已见顶。当时，66%的白领员工没有收到年终奖。而2016年的比例实际上比2014年都有所好转，那一年未收到年终奖的比例为61%。

But that recovery has also seen the size of bonuses drop: last year the average payout was Rmb12,821 ($1,861), about Rmb2,000 more than in 2015 but still roughly Rmb800 below the 2014 average. More than a quarter of those surveyed who saw their bonus shrink last year blamed the decrease on poor company performance.

不过，在这一反弹中也出现了奖金数额的下滑：去年的平均年终奖是12821元人民币（合1861美元），比2015年多了大约2000元人民币，却仍比2014年的平均值少了800元人民币。在奖金缩水的被调查者中，逾四分之一的人将原因归结为公司业绩太差。

Payouts also varied⁴ substantially between industries and cities. The average bonus at financial institutions was over Rmb17,200, while those in the education sector⁵ got less than half of that on average at less than Rmb7,500.

在不同产业和不同城市之间，年终奖的数额也有很大不同。金融机构的平均年终奖为1.72万元人民币，而教育部门年终奖则平均不到这一数额的一半，只有不足7500元人民币。

Disparity between the 34 cities surveyed was still greater, as the the average bonus of over Rmb15,800 in Beijing was more than triple the lowest-paying city of Shenyang, the provincial⁶ capital Liaoning located in China’s northeastern rust⁷ belt.

被调查的34个城市间的差距就更大了。北京市平均年终奖超过1.58万元人民币，超过了年终奖最低的沈阳市的三倍。沈阳市是中国东北铁锈地带辽宁省的省会。

Employees of state-owned firms also expressed more satisfaction with their bonuses than those at private companies – and little wonder, as the average payout at the former was Rmb17,318, or about Rmb6,000 more than what their private-sector counterparts could expect.

国有企业员工对年终奖表达了比民营企业更高的满意度。这一点毫不奇怪，因为国企的平均年终奖是17318元人民币，比民企的预期年终奖高了大约6000元人民币。

But the impact of corporate⁸ stinginess can go beyond simply ruining employees’ lunar new year holiday, possibly coming back to bite employers: 39 per cent of respondents said they would look for work elsewhere if their year-end bonus was not up to snuff, an increase of 2.3 percentage points from 2015.

不过，企业在年终奖上的吝啬，造成的影响可能不仅仅是破坏员工的春节假期，还可能回头反噬雇主：39%的回复者表示如果年终奖不能恢复正常，他们会另谋高就，这一比例比2015年高了2.3个百分点。