Source: Visual China
Author | Chen Fu also
Edit | Jan Pudding
Produced by | Prism Tencent Xiaoman Studio
"Deliver less takeaway, more factory." This is the call issued by Zhang Xinghai, deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of the Xiaokang Group, to young people at the two sessions this year.
According to a report by the People's Daily on March 5, Zhang Xinghai said that many young people choose to send takeaways and express delivery, and are reluctant to enter the factory as industrial workers, resulting in the hollowing out of industrial workers. In 2020, the talent gap in the mainland manufacturing industry reached about 22 million, and in the past five years, an average of 1.5 million laborers have left the manufacturing industry every year, which is not conducive to the healthy development of the manufacturing industry.
He called on the government, society, enterprises and other parties to work together to encourage and support young people to become industrial workers and alleviate the problem of difficulty in recruiting and employing workers in the manufacturing industry. Zhang Xinghai's appeal once rushed to the top of the Weibo hot search list,
Xiaokang Group belongs to the automobile manufacturing industry, and like many of its manufacturing counterparts, its production links are labor-intensive and require thousands of young people every year.
Delivering takeout, or going into the factory? Nowadays, it is becoming a life problem facing many young people. Zhang Xinghai hopes that through his appeal, young people can eat reassuring pills and walk into the factory with peace of mind, so that China's manufacturing industry can continue to develop.
Back 30 years ago, the idle cheap labor force in the countryside came to the factories in the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta one by one, becoming an important creator of the glorious myth of China's manufacturing industry, and "migrant workers" also became a new group of people with Chinese characteristics.
Nowadays, society has been deeply diversified, in addition to delivering takeaways and entering factories, young people have more and more opportunities to choose from, such as catering, security, customer service, chefs, anchors, maintenance workers, etc. Young people from the countryside are no longer like their parents, who can only support themselves and their families by enduring the boredom and pressure of the factory.
And the factory, in order to compete with the platform for young people also tried their best, increase wages, reimburse car fares, install air conditioning in dormitories, and provide free afternoon tea...
On the one hand, this improves the treatment of industrial workers, and on the other hand, it also increases the cost of factories. China's manufacturing industry, which has developed rapidly by relying on demographic dividends and cheap labor, is undergoing subtle changes.
Post-00s are the most popular in factories
Shi Jun (pseudonym), 43, is a Guangxi "cousin" whose thin body prevents him from heavy physical work, and the factories in the Pearl River Delta have been his livelihood for more than 20 years.
In previous years, he would have returned to his factory in Foshan after the Spring Festival, but this year the epidemic in Guangxi changed his plans, and he did not come to Foshan Shunde to find a job until March 6.
"Is there a job that you can get started today?" He dragged his suitcase and asked the agent vigorously. If he is hired on the same day, he can live in the factory's free dormitory, which can save dozens of dollars in guest house costs. But unfortunately, the agent told him that the day's position had been assigned, and he could only wait until tomorrow.
"In the first month, it is the factory that is looking for people; now, it is the people who are looking for the factory." Shi Jun lit a cigarette and thought of asking another intermediary.
His 19-year-old nephew was working with him on work opportunities, but his nephew's expression was noticeably more relaxed, brushing vibrato while replying to friends with WeChat voices. It was hard to leave his hometown, he hoped to be "free" for a few days, and he could not join the job that day, so he just went to the Internet café to "will" spend the night, watch movies, and play games.
Two years ago, the uncle and nephew began to work part-time, a phenomenon that is more common in factories in the Pearl River Delta - hometowns with fellow villagers, relatives with relatives.
Shi Jun was not satisfied with his nephew. A job, nephews can rarely work for half a year, after having money in hand, they will eat and drink with friends, spend the money, and then come back to work - in the Pearl River Delta, the most important thing is work. Shi Jun has to support his family, and he is not willing to delay for a moment, and now that he is 43 years old, he is very close to the "retirement" age of the Pearl River Delta factory, and he does not dare to rest.
In the Pearl River Delta, 45 years old is a hurdle, many factories only recruit workers under the age of 45, and if they are over 45 years old, it is difficult to find a job unless they are skilled.
"These post-00s are now too popular, as long as people arrive, there is no shortage of work, but they are not practical, three days of fishing and two days of drying nets." Shi Jun sighed to the author.
The intermediary with whom they worked, Zhang Lei (pseudonym), was in his early 30s and was once an industrial worker. A few years ago, he was tired of working in a factory, so he and his friends rented a façade in an industrial zone in Shunde to help enterprises recruit workers. He joked that workers are like rice in the field, there will be a new stubble every year, and now, the post-95s are considered to be the elderly, and the post-00s are the most popular.
"Young people have brains, learn things quickly, and they also live on their hands, and the factory is most willing to recruit this crowd." Zhang Lei introduced to the author that his views were not the same as Shi Jun's.
In 2016, Midea Group acquired the German robot brand KUKA, and since then, Midea has built a robot production factory in the Shunde District where its headquarters is located, and one of Zhang Lei's businesses is to help the robot factory recruit workers.
In all the recruitment information of Zhang Lei, the robot factory also provides the highest salary, and the monthly salary can reach 6000-7000 yuan. The factory told Zhang Lei that the robot factory has high requirements for the skills of workers, so let him pay more attention to young people with ideas and motivation, and they will focus on cultivating this group of people, so that they can become senior technical talents in the robot industry.
The person in charge of the recruitment advertisement posted by a talent agency in Foshan said that most of the factories have now been full of people, and there will be no large-scale recruitment, only a small range of supplements. The picture was taken by the author
The asymmetric competition between the platform and the factory
However, the takeaway platform has become a "competition" for the factory, snatching away many young workers.
In January 2019, meituan released the "2018 Takeaway Rider Group Research Report" showing that the last job of Meituan's takeaway riders was mostly industrial workers in the "de-capacity industry", accounting for 31%. That is to say, 1 out of every 3 Meituan riders jumped directly from the factory.
Freedom and more money are the main reasons why young people choose to be riders.
Ah Xiang (pseudonym) is a rider who "escaped from the factory", 7 years ago, he left his hometown to come to the Pearl River Delta, like many fellow villagers, the first stop in society was the factory.
At that time, he was working at Xinbao Electric Appliances, an A-share listed company whose main business was the production of small household appliances. Ah Xiang was on the production line of the drip coffee machine at that time, and his daily job was to clip the plastic shell to the iron sheet of the coffee machine, which had more than a dozen holes, and each hole needed to be aligned, and then flattened with the knife handle of the screwdriver.
This set of work should be completed in 20 seconds, repeated 800 times a day, and after a month, you can earn 3500 yuan.
In the second half of 2018, he left the factory and began working as a delivery rider. At the beginning, due to the unfamiliarity with the distribution route, I don't know where the single is more, every month I run down, and I only get 4,000 yuan; but after familiarity, I can easily earn six or seven thousand, and his friends around him learned of this "good news" and sent takeaway with him.
However, in the eyes of some factory owners, their competition with the takeaway platform is not fair, and the wages of the factory are difficult to match the takeaway platform.
Chen Peng (pseudonym) is the owner of a mold factory in Shunde, he calculated an account to the author, if you open a salary of 5,000 yuan to an employee, the factory will have to pay at least 6,500 yuan in costs, including training, accommodation, social security, provident fund, etc., and for the takeaway platform, it does not need so much. Previously, the takeaway platform did not sign an employment contract with the rider and did not purchase relevant insurance for the rider was controversial.
In addition, compared with the new economic model of takeaway platforms, the factory model is still very traditional, they rely on cost control to achieve profits, and takeaway platforms can "expand at a loss".
In July 2020, "Fun Live", a labor service provider known as China's largest gig platform, went public in the United States, and its main business was to recruit and manage riders for Meituan and Ele.me. According to its prospectus, from 2017 to 2019, the company's gross profit margin was only 4.4%, 7.9% and 7.9%, respectively, and the net loss was 13.97 million yuan, 44.29 million yuan and 13.45 million yuan, respectively.
In December last year, SF Tongcheng landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and takeaway is their important business. According to its prospectus, their labor costs have exceeded revenue, it can be said that SF Tongcheng is to make a single loss, which is jokingly called "the company to work for riders".
Some riders begin to "reflow"
"At the end of the factory brother is the rider, and at the end of the factory sister is the technician."
This is the self-deprecation that a delivery rider once made to the author in 2019. At that time, meituan, hungry, Didi and other platforms were racing in the takeaway market, and high incomes attracted riders to follow.
The delivery rider also worked at the factory, where he met a girl, and the two soon began to get along. Later, in pursuit of a higher income and a better life, both left the factory, he became a rider, and the girl went to a foot massage shop as a technician. But before long, the two began to argue constantly because of the girl's work, and he couldn't stand the eyebrows of his girlfriend and guests, and finally broke up.
In fact, this popular self-deprecation also reflects the changes that are taking place in today's society: industrial workers are flowing to the service industry, and flexible employment is becoming more and more common.
Among the takeaway riders the author came into contact with at the time, he was the only one who missed factory life, and the most common sentence of others was "never want to go back to the factory again."
Now, with the improvement of factory welfare benefits, some riders have begun to "return" to the factory. A data provided by Meituan to the author shows that about 20% of riders return to the factory after leaving their jobs.
In the view of the above-mentioned talent intermediary Zhang Lei, 2019 may be the year when the factory realizes that "takeaway robs people". Before that, the factory rarely raised wages, and the wages were generally between 3500-4000 yuan; after that, it rose to between 4500-5000 yuan, and some skilled positions could reach 5000-8000 yuan.
Midea Group, a leading home appliance company, is a large employer, and the author contacted a Midea employee in charge of recruitment in the name of job hunting. The employee introduced to the author that in addition to the normal salary, the company will also provide employees with bus fares from their hometown to the factory, and as the working hours become longer, there are different length of service subsidies every month, and there are 100-300 yuan of travel subsidies every year.
In addition, the factory will also provide fruit, milk, bread and other afternoon tea every afternoon, and in July every year, employees can enjoy 7-10 days of family leave, which is the same as the treatment of employees in the functional departments of the Midea Group.
"The staff dormitory on our side is very good, quadruple room, new furniture, air conditioning, hot water, better than the university dormitory." This employee introduced himself to the author.
Living conditions are an important reference element for young people to choose whether to enter the factory. On March 6, Mr. Zhang received a grumbling phone call from a job seeker complaining that the factory he visited did not have mosquito nets in the dormitory, that hot water was sometimes not hot, and that six people were crowded into a room.
Shi Jun, 43, also turned down a job recommended by Zhang Lei that day because it did not offer free supper when working the night shift.
Midea Group Life Electrical Appliances Employee Recruitment Center, the staff said that this recruitment advertisement is before, and the current salary is much higher than that advertised. The picture was taken by the author
The factory launched a worker promotion program
"The social status of industrial workers is so low that over the years it is rare to see a single worker become a social model. In contrast, riders, couriers, and anchors are often on TV and reported. Li Gang (pseudonym), the owner of an umbrella factory in Huizhou, lamented to the author.
His factory was small, but it made him proud to feed dozens of employees, which he considered to be his contribution to society. A few years ago, he was particularly worried that those big factories would swallow up his small factories, but what he never expected was that the takeaway platform had become a "big enemy" with him.
Li Gang's workers are mainly post-60s and post-70s, and some post-80s who do not have much culture. Those post-95s and post-00s who have potential rarely go to work in his factory, and such a talent structure limits the development of the factory.
This kind of workshop factory is difficult to provide workers with perfect promotion opportunities, and the factory itself does not have many managers. If the performance is not good, it is difficult for him to improve the treatment of workers. Rising wages for workers in recent years have raised his costs. Today, the average worker in the factory has a monthly wage of seven thousand, and the senior technician has reached eight thousand.
In every economic transformation and upgrading, workshop-style factories will be on the verge of being eliminated, which is also doomed to those large factories to assume more responsibilities for manufacturing. In fact, Midea, Gree, TCL, Galanz, Foxconn, Geely Automobile, Great Wall Motors and other large factories have a set of perfect promotion systems for workers.
The above-mentioned employees in charge of recruiting workers at Midea introduced their employee development system to the author.
The employee development system of the United States has two promotion routes, one is to take the management post, and the other is to take the technical post. For example, if you take a management post, after 6 months of new employees, you are eligible to be promoted to team leader, warehouse manager, clerk, etc., and then you can be promoted to squad leader, then promoted to engineer, production supervisor, and then you can also be a factory director.
"No matter which promotion route, you need to be skilled." The person introduced.
They also have a training and rating system for employees, for example, they will divide talents into senior lean division, intermediate lean division, junior lean division and so on.
"Today's young people are too impetuous, it is difficult to eat that bitterness, always want to make a quick buck." Chen Peng, the owner of the above-mentioned mold factory, lamented to the author that he believes that many young people are unwilling to work hard in the system set by the factory. "I do the factory, I definitely support young people to enter the factory, can not make people rich and expensive, but to be stable, now the factory also needs senior technicians." 」
In fact, many factories are also working hard to narrow the distance between enterprises and workers and improve workers' pride.
Galanz is a family-owned company, and the microwave ovens they produce are sold worldwide and are known as the "Microwave Oven King". This home appliance company in Shunde, Foshan, has an interesting phenomenon. In its public account "Galanz People", almost every issue will introduce a front-line worker to praise their efforts in work and technical research.
The current boss of Galanz, Liang Zhaoxian, 57 years old, is known as "Brother Xian" within the company, and sometimes wears a uniform to the workshop to work overtime with front-line workers on important holidays.
However, as Zhang Xinghai said in his proposal, encouraging young people to enter factories and strive to become industrial workers depends on the joint efforts of the government, society and enterprises.
During this year's two sessions, Zhang Xinghai put forward a total of 5 suggestions, two of which specifically targeted the phenomenon of "lack of work" in the manufacturing industry, including the "Proposal on Encouraging and Policy Supporting Young People to Compete for Industrial Workers" and the "Proposal on Policy Support to Encourage the Manufacturing Industry to Absorb More Employees".
Content produced by Tencent News shall not be copied and reproduced without authorization, otherwise legal responsibility will be pursued.