Meituan delivery staff undergraduate rate of 30%! Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

In front of life, no one should look down on anyone.

Author|Lu Yao

Editor|Sang Mingqiang

This is a hot search I saw a few days ago, saying that it is the first time in the history of Guangzhou that the riders are full, and the undergraduate rate is 30%. At that time, it was more or less surprising, after all, the undergraduate rate of the national population was only about 4.4%.

When the number of undergraduates reaches 1/3 level, in terms of numbers alone, this industry is about the same as knowledge-intensive industries.

The pressure of the job market and the lack of employment opportunities have made the topic also frantically spit on by netizens, and some people commented that "migrant workers with 60 hourly wages cannot be found, and 60 a day college students are a lot." Now, this paragraph is slowly becoming a reality.

Aside from other things, when a high degree enters the food delivery industry, it is indeed not a good thing: it will not only limit their career development, but also waste social resources. Because delivery riders are often seen as a short-term, low-skilled job, generally for job turnover, rather than long-term career planning and promotion.

There are many arguments, prejudices about positions, anxiety about survival, and powerlessness in reality, and this topic has also become a source of intensified contradictions for a while.

But when we look at it from another perspective, the same income through labor, being an improper delivery rider, is actually just an employment choice. Some restaurant owners revealed to "New Eyes" that there are fewer and fewer young people who are willing to engage in catering services, and there are more and more waiters in their forties and fifties in restaurants, but if they have to enter the industry, young people are still more willing to be riders.

"As long as you are willing to run more, there are people with a monthly income of more than 10,000, and food delivery is more flexible and free." Many experts have said before that with the rapid development of the Internet + physical industry, the demand for personnel in the distribution industry is also greater, and young people running to deliver takeaways is essentially still a problem of supply and demand under the changing times.

Looking at some data, the total number of riders who receive income through the Meituan platform has grown from more than 2.2 million in 2017 to 6.24 million in 2022, and the number of riders in the country has long exceeded 13 million, most of which are rural transfer labor, and there are also recent college graduates.

Frankly speaking, this is indeed a new industry brought about by the development of the Internet, but the public, especially for Internet companies, always has a limited favorable impression: mention Baidu, the impression is Putian Hospital and garbage advertising, mention Meituan, is unhygienic food, trapped riders and merchants vicious competition. Many times, we think of the Internet as too extreme and always ignore its positive side.

It is also often discussed within "New Eyes" that the laws of business may have traces to follow, but its development must be dynamic. Every social role and what it does is actually a match between the business system and the social system. There will be pains along the way, but we prefer to focus on what it actually brings.

01

From the demographic dividend to the talent dividend

The portraits of takeaway riders can be roughly divided into: migrant workers in the city, middle-aged unemployed people, college students and industrial workers. Going back to the original question, 30% of undergraduates go to deliver food, and it is not excluded that there are a lot of part-time situations, and they may just see food delivery as a way to earn pocket money or experience labor.

In fact, news such as high-education delivery has become common, whether it is the curiosity of the media, or the useless ridicule of reading at the bottom, satirizing the depreciation of academic qualifications, and even provoking confrontation. We should think more rationally about why these people go to deliver food.

The transformation path of different academic qualifications actually has similarities, such as further study, public examination, going abroad, and employment, which can almost cover the future planning of the vast majority of students in China. However, according to the author's own experience, compared with participating in the work, undergraduate entrance examination research has become a must, and the data that is rising year by year here needless to say. When asked why, many people responded that it was "too difficult to find a job", "a bachelor's degree is not competitive", "everyone is taking the test", and "home requirements".

If you lose the advantage of fresh status or diploma, campus life over the years has not brought enough social skills, to put it bluntly, there is no actual work ability. The most typical, such as undergraduate students who graduated this year, enrolled in 2019, closed schools for up to three years in between, most of them do not have enough offline internship experience, they often lack awareness of various resources, in this case, the entrance examination has become the first option, after all, in addition to stability and decency, exam questions have always been the best at students.

But what if I can't pass the exam? You still have to look for a job, and after being admitted to graduate school, you still have to look for a job (except for the official examination). But the "poor" employment situation has been nailed down, and the school recruitment of state-owned enterprises and large companies is always stuck in academic qualifications, why? The work ability is mediocre, only compared to the academic qualifications.

Of course, it is not excluded that there are some players who really have the ability to work, but they are indeed a minority. In previous graduation seasons, students held offers from several companies, and now many are bald. If all roads come to the southern wall, this is when the graduates have an epiphany: it is better to do manual work, and it will be enough to make money.

But I have to admit that labor-intensive industries, such as electronics factories and construction sites, do have a low threshold, which is relatively knowledge-based industries, but for a person who has studied for many years, whether physically or psychologically, it is difficult to accept.

Some people said before that the talent gap in the domestic manufacturing industry is still very large, college students would rather wait for work than enter the factory, this factory is mainly low-end manufacturing, high-end manufacturing gap is to make up, but the reality is the lack of technical talents, the lack of spare energy, the latter is actually a knowledge-based industry.

In this case, food delivery has become a shortcut to selling labor. The reason is that money is less boring than screwing in a low-end manufacturing factory, and the rider is a new thing brought by the Internet. There are smart phones, can ride electric vehicles, as mentioned earlier, can run east, employment options are also flexible, many people are walking while watching, while studying, looking for a job, the time is up, can be seamlessly docked. At this time, there is no need to raise the bar, the income of running takeaway is uncertain, firstly, it is not easy to change all industries, and secondly, for the way to make money such as running a single work, the certainty is already good.

The Guangzhou Federation of Trade Unions has previously released data that in 2021, most of the takeaway brothers in Guangzhou can earn more than 100,000 per year, with an average monthly average of 8,000+, which really outperformed many factory workers and white-collar workers, so that the takeaway brothers have surged in the past two years. At this time, there is no need to raise the bar, the income of running takeaway is uncertain, firstly, it is not easy to change all industries, and secondly, for the way to make money such as running a single work, the certainty is already good. As the workers gradually became saturated, this did not stop people's enthusiasm for running takeaways.

More than 10 million takeaway riders, as long as the platform gives a good look and the list is enough, the rider is a good job. A large number of highly educated talents have poured into this industry, there is no need for any moral kidnapping, and in the face of life, no one should look down on anyone.

02

The right position, for the right person

There is a premise that providing jobs is one of the greatest values of enterprises.

The development of the Internet for so many years is considered to have subverted most traditional formats. In the new profession, in addition to the takeaway brother, there are also Internet celebrity anchors, online educational institutions, online taxi drivers, e-commerce customer service, and many more. New industries breed new professions, and at the company level, it also means that more people are needed for businesses to expand their boundaries.

For example, in 2021, Tencent announced the launch of the largest school recruitment in history, coincidentally, ByteDance's business development is too strong, this APP factory has promoted online education, e-commerce, games and other full-line businesses in one year, and opened more than 6,000 positions for fresh graduates in the fall of the same year, including spring recruitment, a total of 12,000 people were recruited throughout the year. This is also quite explosive in the entire Internet circle.

That year, research data showed that a large number of companies expanded the scale of campus recruitment, including nearly 15% of the 10,000-person enterprises, and the demand for campus recruitment increased by more than 30%.

The increase in school recruitment places for Internet companies is due to the expansion of business lines; On the other hand, the focus of enterprise recruitment has shifted from social recruitment to school recruitment, and large factories digest social employment problems. So what is presented is actually a scene of ice and fire, and you will find that the wave of layoffs on the Internet has followed.

From the perspective of enterprises, layoffs are to improve human efficiency. Some businesses recruit people before they can figure it out, some are forced to abort due to external reasons, and the original team is facing transfer, restructuring and optimization, in addition to grassroots employees, there are also middle managers, of course, there are also newcomers Xiaobai.

Aside from some internal subjective factors, a lot of employees with less money and more things are laid off, in the final analysis, in the caliber of HR, do more because of low efficiency, take less because of replaceability, and the average person is very saturated. Coupled with the market situation in the past two years, the employment opportunities have reached a new low, and the business of enterprises has gradually tightened, even the school recruitment has disappeared HC.

But even so, this does not affect the fact that the Internet is still a relatively well-paid, promising industry, and its attractiveness has not decreased. Among the layoffs, some chose to lie flat for a while, while others temporarily changed their careers to do takeaway and continued to wait for the wind to come.

People's controversy over food delivery is mainly because of the sense of gap, college students have read books for so many years, and their diplomas have not been rewarded accordingly, and it is impossible to say that it is the sunk cost.

But if you look at it from another angle, it is easy to understand, some people believe that China's higher education has always had a "suspension" phenomenon, and the teaching on campus is out of touch with the talent demand of domestic manufacturing and high-tech industries. This has led to many students studying hard, but they are useless in social practice and cannot find a position corresponding to their major.

For a long time, it has been an easily overlooked fact that services have always accounted for the majority of the domestic economy compared to technology and manufacturing, both in terms of contribution to the domestic economy and the total number of employees. In the context of the Internet era, this trend will continue with a high probability.

03

Maybe times have changed

"You have to admit, times have changed," New Eyes came up with this answer internally when discussing the original question of undergraduates delivering food.

Twenty years ago, people worked in factories, ten years ago white-collar workers worked in enterprises, now young people will choose to bring goods in the live broadcast room, deliver takeaway on the road, and the change in supply and demand has spawned a new format. But because this is different from the cognition that people have accumulated in the past, they will always fall into a professional bias similar to a strange circle.

We have talked to many food delivery practitioners in the past and found that although this industry is not as difficult as imagined, it is by no means easy. The takeaway brother connects merchants and customers, but it is still an asset of the platform, and in the process of user competition, in order to maintain a better experience advantage, the responsibility of solving the efficiency problem is given to the rider, so that the industry is crowned with the title of "high risk".

Many senior riders, who have engraved a map of the city in their heads, will always give the best route in solving the postman problem, and they can even quickly identify the distribution methods of different communities, elevator rooms, takeaway racks, security booths, and the location of each gate is well known, and a rider from a foreign country will be more familiar with the corner of the city than the aborigines.

Before the epidemic, a report mentioned that in the process of urbanization, a large number of rural people moved to the city, and the service industry driven by the Internet became the industry that absorbed the most employment in China, and in 2018, the identity of the takeaway brother has also become the reason why a large number of people here can base themselves in the town, they have money, bought a house, got married, and become a member of the progress of the times.

Of course, this is not an encouragement to take off their tunics and put on a vest, as one of the 985 school graduates recorded in a video, "Education gives me the choice to do what I do, not what I can do." "It's true, a lot of our efforts are about having more options.

The pressure of employment competition is not small, and if there is no absolute competitiveness in a certain field, it is difficult to say that the future career path can be smooth. Huawei is still recruiting its million-year-old genius teenagers, and big factories are not sparing to find core technical talents, and most of us may still be looking for an ordinary position that suits them, as for whether to deliver food, it depends on personal choices and survival needs.

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