Topic: news Breaking Your Contract in China: New Consequences for Pulling a “Midnight Run”

A release letter is simply a document that tells the government that you no longer work for your employer. Sometimes it is referred to as a recommendation letter. However, it is not a recommendation letter that offers praise or criticism. Actually, each province has a different format of what is accepted, but usually it is just a written letter that specifies that the contract has ended either prematurely or upon dissolution. The letter should contain the original contract dates, the names of the parties, your passport number, a statement regarding the intent to vacate, any outstanding payments or penalties have been satisfied, signatures and a red company stamp. That's it. No employee evaluation is required. I had this issue with my current employer. They gave me this form and told me that my last employer needed to fill it out, including employer comments. I tried to tell them that the gov't would reject their form and sure enough the gov't did. Luckily, I had already written a release letter myself and had the last company stamp it. It worked! Usually just a paragraph with the above info works just fine. Hell, if worse comes to worse, just Photoshop the damn company stamp from your contract onto a letter yourself. The guy down at the gov't bureau doesn't have the motivation to verify that it's real. Nobody, and I am 100% convinced of this, NOBODY plays by the rules here. Why should you?