Editor-in-chief's point of view: It's time to give operators a raise at the grassroots level

The first article of the Year of the Tiger wants to speak for the grass-roots employees of the operator. The reason is that during the Spring Festival and many local operator friends to visit the New Year, when it comes to the blessings of the New Year, everyone hopes to increase their salaries this year, otherwise, the days will be a little sad.

The performance of the three major operators in 2021 is quite good. In the first three quarters, China Mobile's operating income was 648.6 billion yuan, an increase of 12.9% year-on-year, and net profit was 87.2 billion yuan, an increase of 6.9% year-on-year; China Unicom's operating income was 244.489 billion yuan, an increase of 8.5% year-on-year, and net profit was 12.923 billion yuan, an increase of 19.4% year-on-year; China Telecom's operating income was 326.536 billion yuan, an increase of 12.3% over the same period last year, and its net profit was 23.327 billion yuan, an increase of 24.7% over the same period last year.

The performance is so good, and it is reasonable to give employees a salary increase. But the reality is that the grassroots employees of operators have not raised salaries for many years, and the possibility of salary increases in the new year seems unlikely. At present, the wages of grass-roots employees of operators are generally low, and statistics show that only a small number of grass-roots employees have a monthly salary of more than 10,000 yuan, and this part of the personnel is mainly from the market department with commissions. About 2/3 of the employees' monthly wages are still less than 5,000 yuan, and more than 15% of the grass-roots employees have monthly wages of less than 2,000 yuan.

Such income is hard to believe. Once upon a time, the telecommunications industry was considered a high-profit, high-income monopoly industry, and the welfare benefits of some operator employees were indeed good, and public opinion once "verbally punished" the high income of telecom operators. After that, the relevant departments and operator headquarters imposed restrictions on the overall wages of employees, and as a result, the wages of grass-roots employees stagnated for more than 10 years.

In recent years, with the impact of Internet manufacturers, how telecom operators transform has always been a hot topic in the industry, specific to grass-roots employees, that is, the layers of KPI assessment indicators. High pressure and low income have been the general consensus of the grass-roots employees of the three major operators, and many people feel that there is no prospect for development, and the final result is a serious loss of operator talents.

So why not give grassroots employees a raise in salary?

The reasons are both complex and uncomplicated. The complexity is that, first, the operators in transition have been in a state of weak growth in the past decade, as strong as China Mobile, the profits of the past few years have also been declining, some places mobile companies have actually lost money, and the days of telecom and Unicom have been difficult, in this case, it is obviously impossible to raise salaries for employees; second, in recent years, operators have invested too much in infrastructure such as 4G/5G, optical network, etc., and the relevant national policies require operators to vigorously reduce fees, poor growth, and reduce revenue. Operators do not have excess funds to raise wages; the third is the constraints of institutional mechanisms, the restrictions of the "wage cap", so that operators can only put money into the so-called "blade", to transform must be innovative, to innovate need to have talents, the three major operators in recent years are increasing the introduction of scientific and technological talents and incentives, the money used to raise salaries are spent in these aspects.

To say that it is not complicated, the key lies in whether the eyes of the operator's senior management can also look down. Although the old saying is "a thousand armies are easy to get, one will be difficult to find", but ordinary soldiers also need care and love. Otherwise, morale will remain low and there will be no way to win the battle. Of course, how to balance is indeed a difficult problem, but it is time for the top management of operators to pay attention to the income of grass-roots employees.

Raising salaries for grassroots employees has been shouted for many years, but it has not been implemented. Last year, the operator's revenue was not bad, the profit also rose a lot, many grass-roots employees are looking forward to whether it is time to increase the salary. For grassroots employees, although the spiritual encouragement of leaders during the New Year's Festival is needed, what is more needed is the "silver" to settle down.

End

Author: Liu Qicheng

Editor-in-Charge/Layout: Fan Fan

Review: Shen Qing

Producer: Liu Qicheng

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