Workers At Chinese Factory That Produces Labubu Toys Are Being Exploited, Says NGO

 

Exclusive: China Labor Watch says people aged 16-18 employed without required special protections

 A labour rights NGO says it has found evidence of worker exploitation in the supply chain of Labubus, the furry toys that took the world by storm last year and which are expected to continue to grow in popularity in 2026.

Labubus, toothy gremlins made by the Chinese toy company Pop Mart, have

become one of China’s hottest cultural exports. In the first half of 2025 alone, “the Monsters” line of toys, which includes Labubus, generated 4.8bn yuan (£511m) in sales for the Hong Kong-listed company. In August, Pop Mart’s chief executive, Wang Ning, said the company was on track to reach 20bn yuan in revenues in 2025.

According to an investigation by China Labor Watch (CLW), a New York-based NGO, one of Pop Mart’s suppliers for Labubus has engaged in exploitative workplace practices. They include workers being forced to sign blank contracts, 16- and 17-year-olds being employed without the special protections for young workers required by Chinese law, inadequate health and safety training and other labour rights violations at the factory in south-east China’s Jiangxi province.

CLW sent investigators to Shunjia Toys in Xinfeng county in Jiangxi, a factory that employs more than 4,500 people, over three months in 2025. The researchers interviewed more than 50 employees, including three under the age of 18. All of the workers were working exclusively on Labubus.

The researchers found that the factory employed workers aged 16 to 18, which is legal under Chinese law, but only with special protections such as prohibitions on dangerous or strenuous work. The 16- to 18-year-old workers at Shunjia had been assigned to standard assembly line positions with no difference in workload or production targets to adult workers.

“The underage workers also generally did not understand the nature of the contracts they signed, and had no clear concept of their legal status when asked,” CLW’s report said.

The investigation also found that workers routinely signed blank labour contracts. CLW said workers were told to fill in their personal details on employment contracts, while details of the working conditions, such as the contract’s term, the job content, the salary and social insurance details were left “blank and unexplained”.

“Workers were given no more than five minutes to complete the process and were told explicitly not to read or fill in other sections,” CLW said.

Reflecting the soaring demand of the toys, workers said they were given unrealistic production targets, with a team of 25-30 workers being required to assemble at least 4,000 Labubus a day. Chinese labour law limits monthly overtime to 36 hours, but CLW found that workers often worked more than 100 additional hours each month.

Shunjia Toys has an official production capacity of 12m toys per year, with plans announced in late 2025 to expand to 33m.

That represents a small share of the overall production of Labubus, which Pop Mart said last year was about 30m units per month. The company works with a range of local manufacturing partners in China and south-east Asia, with recent additions in Mexico as demand soars.

However, CLW’s interviews suggested that Shunjia was already producing far more than 12m units annually, with two teams alone estimated to produce more than 24m units per year. “This gap between planned capacity and actual output is not uncommon in China’s manufacturing sector,” said Li Qiang, the executive director of CLW. “When market demand rises rapidly, production often expands well beyond planned levels, with the resulting pressure borne directly by workers.”

A spokesperson for Pop Mart said: “At Pop Mart, we take the welfare and safety of workers at our [original equipment manufacturers] factories very seriously. We conduct regular, standardised audits of our OEM supply chain partners, including annual independent third-party audits carried out by internationally recognised professional audit firms.

“We appreciate the information brought to our attention and are currently investigating the matter. Going forward, Pop Mart will continue to strengthen supply chain audit and oversight mechanisms. Should the findings be substantiated, we will firmly require the relevant partners to implement comprehensive corrective actions in accordance with local laws and regulations.”

Shunjia Toys could not be reached for comment.

The conditions described in the Shunjia Toys factory are not uncommon in China’s manufacturing sector, where workers work long hours for low pay, with scant enforcement of the labour protections that are officially enshrined in Chinese law.

The soaring demand for Labubus has also generated a large black market for fakes, known as Lafufus, which are often done by informal workers in home factories with zero oversight about working conditions.

The findings reflect the challenges faced by Chinese companies which are aggressively pushing into international markets but are increasingly expected to abide by higher standards for their workers.

Li said: “At present, existing supply-chain oversight mechanisms do not appear sufficient to identify and prevent these labour issues in a timely and effective manner. If Pop Mart is serious about reducing labor risks in the Labubu supply chain, it should establish accessible grievance and communication mechanisms for workers (such as an independent and effective worker hotline), improve transparency around actual factory working conditions, and disclose its supply chain structure, including outsourced production, to enable meaningful oversight.”

Credit: The Guardian