Is the reluctance of young people to "enter the factory" a problem of "delivering takeaways"?

Cover image | stills from "The Beginning."

Wen | Feng Ma Niu (WeChat public number: Feng Lun Feng Ma Niu)

01

Should young people deliver less takeaway and more factories?

In recent days, a proposal to "encourage young people to deliver less takeaway and more into the factory" has become a hot topic.

The reason is that a deputy to the National People's Congress said in an interview during the two sessions that many young people choose to send takeaways and express delivery, and are unwilling to enter the factory as industrial workers, resulting in difficulties in recruiting workers in the manufacturing industry, which is not conducive to the long-term development of society. "In recent years, takeaway, e-commerce, online live broadcasting, etc. have attracted a large number of young people to employment, and even graduate students in the express delivery industry have become practitioners. Many young people are reluctant to go to work in factories, which has led to the hollowing out of industrial workers." The delegates suggested that all sectors of society work together to encourage and support more young people to become industrial workers.

As soon as this statement came out, some people agreed, believing that this statement was in line with their own perception based on daily experience - that fewer and fewer young people are willing to enter the factory and become industrial workers. Some people also cited the remarks of the glass king Cao Dewang in an interview as evidence. In an interview in September 2019, Cao Dewang said: "Today's young people would rather be property security guards than deliver takeaways rather than work in factories, which is the dilemma currently facing the manufacturing industry."

Of course, some people also put forward different views, believing that flexible employment under new formats such as takeaway delivery, express delivery, and live broadcasting is not necessarily a worse choice for young people than entering the factory, and young people have the freedom to choose a career.

From their respective positions, it seems that there is a certain truth.

At a time when everyone is arguing endlessly, there is actually another topic that is worth discussing again, that is: why are young people reluctant to work in factories? Is it really the takeaway, express delivery, live broadcasting and other industries that "rob" industrial workers?

The answer to this question is likely to be no.

02

Why don't young people love to go into the factory?

As the NPC deputy said, "This situation is related to the low income of the manufacturing industry."

In addition, in the public perception, entering the factory means starting a "streamlined" stable life.

Especially in large-scale factories with intensive labor, the factory brothers and sisters are often "workstation-canteen-dormitory" three-point line, the activity space is limited, and the social and discretionary time is pitifully small, not to mention the common extra overtime and single rest.

This is undoubtedly unattractive to young people with higher education and free thinking.

At present, young people choose a career, salary is very important, and the sense of professional experience is equally important. This sense of experience includes freedom, social recognition, individuality, development space, and so on.

Compared with entering the factory to become a screw on the assembly line, the flexibility is higher, the social is stronger, and the work that has a certain initiative in its own time, whether it is to deliver takeaway, express delivery, or live broadcasting, or other "flexible employment", is more favored by young people.

03

The reluctance of young people to enter the factory may be an inevitable development

Once upon a time, young people also loved to enter the factory.

Just as today's young people "do not go into the factory to deliver takeaways", in the not so long past, young people have also "abandoned the land to enter the factory".

In January 2012, the National Bureau of Statistics released the main macroeconomic data for 2011. According to the data at that time, at the end of 2011, the proportion of urban population in Chinese mainland reached 51.27% of the total population, and the urban population exceeded that of rural areas for the first time. From "one billion nationals and 900 million rural areas" to "more than half of the nationals living in towns", it has only been more than 30 years.

With the release of this data, for some time afterwards, a concern that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s was once again the focus of discussion: a large number of rural people moved to the cities, so who would cultivate the land?

As for today's concern about "who will enter the factory", experts who were concerned about the three rural areas at that time also raised the question of "who will cultivate the land".

In 2011, the media reported that "the total number of migrant workers and peasants on the mainland has exceeded 246 million, and it is increasing at a rate of nearly 10 million per year." This increase of nearly 10 million people every year is constantly moving out of the countryside and very little is returning, and the countryside is shrinking at a rate of about 20 administrative villages per day. The question of who will cultivate the land, who will raise pigs, and who will raise chickens is gradually becoming more prominent, and it is becoming more and more intense."

What worried many people at that time was that "the post-70s generation was reluctant to cultivate land, the post-80s generation would not cultivate land, and the post-90s generation did not mention farming." There is no successor to agriculture, how to ensure food security?

However, ten years later, the proportion of urban population is still increasing, but many of the feared "no one cultivates land" phenomenon has not occurred. Because of factors such as changes in production relations (land circulation) and improvement in efficiency (agricultural mechanization), although the agricultural population is getting smaller and smaller, grain production has increased for many years.

From young people getting rid of the shackles of the land, entering towns, entering factories, and then young people not entering factories to deliver takeaways, this change is under market conditions, young people choose the best.

04

Do manufacturing factories need so many people?

Almost at the same time as the reluctance of young people to enter the factory, the factory does not need so many workers.

China's manufacturing industry began to absorb a large number of employed people at the beginning of the century.

In 2001, China's accession to the WTO, followed by a large number of orders, made Chinese manufacturing prosperous for a while, hordes of Chinese migrant workers poured into the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, low labor costs made "Made in China" marketed all over the world. In less than a decade, China has become the world's factory. Closely related to this, China is not only the world's largest manufacturing added value, but also the largest manufacturing employment.

However, after 2013, although the proportion of China's manufacturing industry added value in the world has continued to rise, the number of manufacturing employees has continued to decline.

Statistics show that the number of jobs absorbed by China's manufacturing industry peaked at 148 million in 2013. After that, the inflection point of manufacturing employment appeared, and the average annual decline in employment scale was more than 2 million.

Among them, the efficiency improvement brought about by the wide application of industrial robots has greatly reduced the number of employees, which is the most obvious.

As early as 2011, Foxconn founder Terry Gou said that by 2014, Foxconn would assemble 1 million robotic arms and complete the first batch of automated factories within five to ten years. This is known as Foxconn's Million Robots Program.

In 2013, Foxconn employed more than 1.2 million people worldwide, and by 2017, the total number of employees worldwide was about 988,000, a decrease of more than 200,000. But in these four years, the company's revenue increased from 250 billion to 354.5 billion.

In Foxconn's "lights-out factory" in Shenzhen, because of the use of robots, a single production line has been reduced from 318 staff to 38 staff, a reduction of nearly 90%, but the production efficiency has increased by 30%.

Not only Foxconn, But also Dong Mingzhu, chairman of Gree, also introduced the "black light factory" (unmanned factory) of Gree Electric Appliances at the 2021 World Artificial Intelligence Conference. She said, "With the blessing of AI, unmanned operation has brought subversive changes to precision, quality and efficiency, and factories that used to have 10,000 people now only need 1,000 people." As a result, the company's personnel structure has changed completely."

Zhuo Xian, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, also said in a research report, "The calculation results show that from 2013 to 2017, 2.93 million workers were replaced by new industrial robots in the mainland."

According to the data of the "14th Five-Year Plan" Robot Industry Development Plan, the mainland has become the world's largest consumer of industrial robots for 8 consecutive years.

According to other data, the density of manufacturing robots in mainland China will reach 246 units per 10,000 people in 2020, which is nearly twice the global average.

In addition to factors such as efficiency improvement, deepening division of labor and cross-border transfer, it has also brought about a reduction in the employment of manufacturing enterprises.

While the number of manufacturing workers is decreasing, the labor force in the market is not only not decreasing, but continues to increase, and in recent years, the number of new jobs in cities and towns every year is more than 10 million.

From this point of view, rather than saying that new formats such as takeaway, express delivery, and live broadcasting have "robbed" young people, it is better to say that new formats have given young people more ways out.

05

What kind of workers are really lacking in manufacturing companies?

At the beginning of 2019, CCTV Financial Channel broadcast a program called "Zhejiang: Difficult to Recruit, Machine Sleep, Workshop becomes Warehouse" in the "Economic News Network" column.

In the program, the reporter found after visiting some enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta that it is easy for enterprises to upgrade production lines, but it is not so easy for workers to upgrade with them.

There is a serious shortage of skilled workers who understand intelligent equipment. Companies spend not only money on equipment, but also on training workers. "There are still not many workers who understand smart equipment, there is a shortage, and some high-tech talents are reluctant to enter the factory workshop, and the only solution at present is self-training."

In an electronic product manufacturing enterprise in Shenzhen, the reporter saw that the intelligent production line reduced the number of jobs that originally required 8 workers to 3. But the person in charge said that ordinary workers are not worried, but there are a large number of gaps in skilled workers.

This is likely to be the truth of the shortage of people in manufacturing enterprises: manufacturing enterprises lack young people with technical ability, who are skilled workers, not ordinary workers.

To solve the problem of the lack of skilled workers, in addition to improving the incentive mechanism of enterprises, the most important thing is probably to work hard from the supply side, expand the training channels for skilled workers, and accelerate the pace of development of vocational education, rather than criticizing the tertiary industry for robbing workers in the manufacturing industry.

06

The choices of the market and the choices of individuals should be respected

With the heated discussion among netizens, the deputies and committee members participating in the two sessions also participated in the discussion on this topic.

On the evening of March 8, Dong Mingzhu, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Gree Electric Appliances, and Liu Shangxi, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and president of the China Academy of Fiscal Sciences, put forward their views in an interview with the People's Daily new media "2022 Two Sessions Lianmai".

Dong Mingzhu said: Three hundred and sixty lines, the line out of the yuan, the line needs talents. Each enterprise should choose talents according to their own development needs. For Gree, college students from colleges and universities, although they have certain theoretical knowledge, they also need to be trained when they come to enterprises. It will also be put on the front line, and after his live experience, he may grow faster. But some people are not willing to go, that does not necessarily mean that everyone must go to the front line. "I think it's still young people's own choice."

Liu Shangxi believes that young people do not enter the factory to deliver takeaways, which is actually the result of market choices. If when the industrial worker earns more, he feels better, naturally he will go, if he thinks that delivering food can make more money and have more freedom, he naturally chooses to do this. Respect the choices of the market and the choices of individuals.

In addition, in the context of digitalization, there are now unmanned factories and unmanned workshops, and the speed of machine replacement for people is very fast. Intelligent, especially after the rapid development of the industrial Internet, the production process of many products may not require workers. Workers may be turning more to the service sector, so don't look at the current industry in terms of the traditional industrial assembly line of the past, and if that is the case, it will go back.

The digital revolution, the new industrial form brought by digital technology, the new way of economic operation, and the new way of enterprise organization also need to have a new employment mentality.

All in all, through the combing of relevant information on this topic, it is not difficult to find that whether it is planting land, delivering takeaway food and courier, doing live broadcasting, or entering the factory, it should not be an "N choose one" problem. Young people have the right to choose their own careers freely, no matter what the individual choice is, no matter what it is, it is the young people who use their own hands to create the value of labor, there is no distinction between high and low, and they should be understood and respected.

Resources:

1. Employment Trend Report| Where China's Manufacturing Jobs Have Gone, Caijing Magazine

2. "Who will cultivate the land?" ——An analysis of the typical case of "peasant shortage", agricultural economy

3. "2022 Two Sessions": Young people are employed, enter the factory or deliver takeaways? People's Daily New Media

4. Is the reluctance of young people to "enter the factory" a problem of "delivering takeaways"? Zhongqing commented

5. Delivering takeout or going into the factory? How to understand the choices of young people, the surging news

6. Delivering takeaway or entering the factory should not be a matter of choosing one of the two, Yangcheng Evening News

7. Delivering takeout or going into the factory? How young people's multiple choice questions have become a big topic in society, Chengdu Business Daily

8. Zhejiang: difficult to recruit workers, machines to sleep, workshops to warehouses, CCTV finance

Image from the web

The author of this article | Feng Xiao'er's editor-in-chief | Wang Tao

Wang Shuqi, consultant | Chen Runjiang, editor|