A recent survey found that the global economic downturn which began at the end of 2008 has altered Chinese attitudes towards employment.

According to a report by Horizon Research, a leading market research company in China, last year urban employees paid more attention to the remuneration and welfare provided by employers, but less to working intensity, environment and human relationships.

The report said incomes dropped due to the global economic downturn, but more critically a sense of crisis had manifested which would affect people for a long time.

The survey showed that 21 percent of the respondents said the economic downturn influenced their lives by a considerable degree, and 23.3 percent said their income had not decreased but neither had it increased as expected.

The report concluded that Chinese people who had got used to "growth", were likely to feel a sense of insecurity even if their income had not gone down.

Around 31.9 percent of employees surveyed in bigger cities and 19.4 percent in smaller towns said that they now dared not to complain about increased work stress, "slack around" on the job or "job-hop".