There has been near double digit growth in the national average annual wage for urban employees since 2004, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, with the average wage reaching 56,339 yuan in 2014 (around US$9,000). See chart above. By 2012, many commentators had already declared the end of cheap labour in China. However, these headlines and the official statistics mask huge disparities between different industries, geographic regions, urban and rural areas, as well as between senior managers and ordinary workers. The minimum wage in China has never been a living wage, and employees on the minimum wage usually have to rely on excessive overtime and production bonuses just to get by. Moreover, as economic growth has slowed in recent years, more and more businesses are defaulting on wage payments in a blatant violation of the Labour Law.