Beijing-based toy company Pop Mart apologized on Friday for asking women to fill in their childbirth plans in interviews after being accused by Chinese netizens of gender discrimination against women.
The company said in a statement on Friday that the incident was due to unprofessional recruitment standards by certain branches and it pledged to rectify the process in the future.
The statement came after some netizens revealed on social media that Pop Mart made women fill in their childbirth plans in the near future in an interview question that was only given to female candidates, which led to extensive discussion on Chinese social media.
As of press time, the topic “Pop Mart made women fill in birth plans in interviews” has attracted more than 120 million views and 8,859 comments on China’s Twitter like social media platform Sina Weibo, with many accusing the company of gender discrimination.
“You make money from women and then discriminate against women?” one netizen said.
“It’s a wake up call for women who buy their toys,” said another netizen.
Pop Mart said in response that “as a company with a majority of clients that are female, we always attach great respect to women.”
“Female employees account for 68.8 percent of the firm’s total staff, and nearly 75 percent of the new employees recruited in the past six months. In the future, Pop Mart expects more professional women to join the company,” the statement said.
Pop Mart is a Chinese toy manufacturer known for its “blind boxes” that don’t reveal the exact toy inside. It was listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange last December.
Photo: VCG
