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Well, they’re from villages all across China. They need somewhere to live and it might as well not have a commute.

Nearly every large employer in China has employee housing of some sort, including government agencies. Every single manufacturer has dorms.

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I think the issue is more that the employees are on-call 24/7. On-site housing is just a way to make that happen.

I used to work for a catering hall that was, decades ago, a resort. The cottages on the property, that once used to house guests, housed the (illegal alien) kitchen workers. The owner (and his managers) used to wake everyone up and get them into the kitchen, unexpectedly, if something went wrong—which might mean only management's planning.

It cannot be ignored that—however convenient it may be for workers—the arrangement is easy for management to abuse.

Company dorms were a thing when the U.S. started to industrialize. People come off the farms and in to industrial areas, they know nobody, and they don't have two nickels to rub together. So, they got put up in dorms.

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