The Shanghai Labor and Social Security Bureau announced on Sunday that it handled 18,041 labor disputes last year, an increase of 16 percent on 2003.

Up to 97 percent of the disputes were filed by local individual employees who won 86 percent of cases after arbitration.

The number of cases involving privately owned companies jumped by 20.3 percent to 7,249, accounting for 40 percent of last year's total number.

Foreign-invested companies saw their case number increase by less than 1 percent.

Most of the disputes involved social insurance, wages, economic compensation and contract termination.

(Shanghai Daily January 24, 2005)