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Fang Hongbo, chairman of Midea Group, had a thought-provoking conversation with an optimized veteran employee in an internal forum. This conversation completely confirmed the long-circulated news of Midea's large-scale layoffs. Although the specific figure Fang Hongbo did not disclose, judging from the seriousness of the dialogue and the subsequent disclosure of the media, this is by no means an understatement.
The veteran employee wrote in the post: "The optimized notification came suddenly... The most sorry people in these years are the family, especially parents and wives. His 76-year-old father has cancer, and during the pandemic, his 75-year-old mother accompanied him to see a doctor. In 2009, while out of town on business, his wife went to the hospital alone to give birth.
"Second, I feel sorry for my body." In 2019, he was injured in an experiment and was unable to receive treatment due to construction pressure, leaving sequelae.
"Looking back now, I was so kind. You need to provide for a house, you have to raise children, and you even have to try to endure the pain of broken teeth and bleeding. ”
Finally, he left a poem: "The world praises the beauty of spring flowers, and the spring light has also been dressed with green leaves." The world praised the back wave as new, and in a blink of an eye, the back wave became the front wave. ”
Fang Hongbo replied: "I read your post carefully, and I am a little sad and deeply ashamed at the same time. "In the torrent of the times, there will always be a moment when we suddenly realize the irresistibility of fate; It's like we're afraid of the dark, but night still inevitably comes. He explained that after the pandemic in 2020, the company has been persevering, but now it is facing more pressure and shocks and has to make difficult choices.
He also quoted a sentimental phrase: "To borrow a phrase from Zhang Ailing many years ago, 'Work hard like there will be no tomorrow, dream like tomorrow will come.'" ”
The sad thing about this conversation is that it's like a life-and-death love battle: loving each other deeply, yet trying to destroy each other.
So what got them to this point?
Then, an internal Midea employee of the 21st Century Business Review provided more detailed information on layoffs in the report. The second round of layoffs has now taken place, the third round will take place in June, and it is normal to lay off a third. "There is no absolutely safe department, just a different proportion." There will be layoffs every month, and there may be 4 or 5 more rounds to follow. At the end of 2021, Fang Hongbo's team was rumored to predict that the next three years would be a difficult period. Therefore, Midea's priority is to restore profitability.
According to officials, Midea's layoffs are to abandon non-core businesses and focus on core businesses.
However, the report seems to be a bit over-touting Fang Hongbo. The article implies that ten years ago, when Fang Hongbo entered the United States, he underwent a large-scale restructuring, cut many redundant projects, and led Midea to achieve today's revenue of more than 300 billion yuan.
Today, Fang Hongbo remains ambitious, striving to excel in the three-year winter of economic trough through layoffs and optimizations.
However, the author of this article and Fang Hongbo seem to have forgotten that ten years ago China was an important part of the world economic system, supply chain development was at its peak, there was no epidemic and no city lockdown. China's manufacturing is booming, and national disposable income is rising.
In contrast, Fang Hongbo has not really experienced setbacks, and it is clear that he is not as knowledgeable as Yu Minhong.
In a conversation with Peng Kaiping, head of the psychology department at Tsinghua University, Yu Minhong mentioned: "Today's urban youth, when they lose their jobs or cannot find jobs, they will immediately lose their homes, because many people do not have houses and can only rent houses. Even if you return home, you may not have access to resources. ”
Yu Minhong himself may not be very worried. His account is said to remain $4.4 billion in February.
But in mid-May, he asked management to quickly rein in spending, "otherwise New Oriental may not be guaranteed." ”
The most critical problem, however, was his inability to find new sources of income. Even if large-scale live broadcasts have been conducted, the average revenue per show is less than 200,000.
Whatever Mr. Yu's personal future, his concerns about young people seem valid.
The situation of employment and unemployment seems to be unprecedented. Numerous surveys and data have repeatedly proved this problem.
The class of 2022 has reached a record 10.76 million college graduates, and so far the signing rate is only 22% for men and 10% for women. April's data is even more worrying, with the unemployment rate for 16-24 year olds reaching a record high of 18.2%.
However, the worries of these middle-aged and elderly people are simply unfounded in the eyes of young people; And the retreat mentioned by Yu Minhong is more like a meaningless joke. Today, young people's perception of careers has surpassed that of the optimistic entrepreneurs and achievers of the past. East China University of Political Science and Law and Fudan University jointly conducted a five-year social survey to study college students' employment perceptions, which lasted from 2015 to 2020.
Let's take a look at some of what college graduates have to say about the workplace. When choosing a job, they value space for development, income, ability enhancement, and personal interests. The quest for material wealth and financial freedom is even stronger. As a result, their salary expectations have increased significantly over the past five years. The proportion of people who want to earn more than 8,000 yuan a month for their first job has risen from 11.8% to 33.9%.
So, how will they achieve this goal? The answer is by working within the system. Their ideal employment direction is more inclined to work in civil servants, public institutions and state-owned enterprises, and the proportion has reached 42.9%, nearly half. The Internet and private enterprises accounted for only 13.1%.
The survey also concluded that the purpose of work is to assume responsibilities for the home country and pursue personal ideals.
A survey by an institution shows that the per capita disposable income of the Z generation in 2019 has reached 3501 yuan, while the national per capita disposable income in the same period is only 2561 yuan. That said, the younger generation has more cash on hand than their parents. Where does all this money come from? On the one hand, it is because parents gave everything they had to support them when they were only children; On the other hand, they tell us bluntly: the Internet, large enterprises, gaming and other platforms are enough to feed themselves. This confirms a myth: the number of flexible employment has exceeded 200 million.
However, I don't know if you have heard that the Internet giants are encountering stormy moments? Since the beginning of 2022, the wave of layoffs has gradually risen, intensifying in March and April, and this wave is directly affecting the Internet giants.
Meituan's layoffs have spread from the initial Preferred Business Unit to almost all departments such as Home, Store, Taxi, Tuanhao, Qiping, and Meituan Platform. ByteDance's innovative business line has also disappeared entirely; Kuaishou not only involves e-commerce, but also core business lines such as algorithms, commercialization, and games... JD.com, Didi, iQiyi, Station B, Himalaya, Youzan, Weimob, no matter how big or small, almost all Internet companies have been affected.
All large and small companies are going through the process of surviving with broken arms, giving up some value and seeking new life. On Wall Street, Chinese concept stocks have suffered a full-blown sell-off, with shares falling by 90%, the combined market value of more than 100 companies is not as valuable as that of Apple, and most of them are included in the list of potential delistings.
Another way to survive is to lay off workers, where companies try to reduce spending by downsizing their operations and gain some space for themselves.
It's ridiculous to criticize that these internet giants are actually cutting jobs to increase profit margins.
What's wrong with cutting off a lot of businesses that were originally expansion, but now that the economy is tight, what's wrong with cutting the loss-making part in order to increase the profit margin of the core business? Is it normal for the entire company to be in a loss-making state?
The big companies can't hold on, and there are actually more small companies behind them, which have long been unable to maintain operations.
On Nanjing Road, empty (Image source/Internet), the WeChat public account "Beast Building" released an article called "They Didn't Do Anything Wrong" two days ago, discussing the plight of small and medium-sized enterprises in this wave. Many businesses have gone bankrupt, but not because they did something wrong, but simply because of the tide of the times.
The origin of this article is Zhihu's previous post with nearly 10 million views: "Are there really many private companies going bankrupt this year, and many people are unemployed?" There were more than 600 answers. In these answers, from the Pearl River Delta to the Yangtze River Delta to the northeast region, some founders of small and medium-sized private enterprises revealed to us the fact that we are out of business, we can't hold on. A company that once had more than 60 employees is now left with only the status of founders. The owner of a foreign trade enterprise that once had an annual income of more than 100 million yuan is now studying epidemic news every day.
Internet giants are not legendary cornucopias, you put a piece of gold ingots in it, and then it doesn't need any processing to produce more gold ingots. They require consumers to fund them with real money: advertisers to run ads, players to top up, consumers to buy products.
Small and medium-sized business owners have no income, and workers lose their jobs. Social capital is shrinking and jobs are disappearing. Money doesn't come from the wind, and the decline in consumer disposable income has led to the drying up of Internet companies' revenues.
This is the most basic market principle.
However, young people do not understand this, they think that the Internet platform will provide them with a steady stream of money.
In the end, only those middle-aged people who have experienced the vicissitudes of the world really know the seriousness of the matter.
The Economic Observer published an article titled "Middle-aged People Unemployed under the Epidemic". The article mentions 600 unemployed people, including operators, programmers and financers. In the first quarter of 2022, new car sales in Shanghai fell from 145,800 units to zero in April. Behind this figure are unemployed migrant workers, troupe performers and tour guides, who are forced to face endless hardships.
Zhaopin's statistics last year showed that middle-aged people aged 35-50 increased their job search by 45% year-on-year, while the increase in positions was only 5%. This means that a large number of job seekers are forced to compete for limited positions, and the employment situation is difficult.
They used to be the stars of the troupe, but after the troupe disbanded four times, they could only switch careers to become delivery boys. They used to work in garment factories and floor tile processing factories, but now they can no longer find stable jobs. They used to roam the streets of Thailand, but now they can only become ride-hailing drivers.
What is unfortunately lost cannot be recovered. Sadly, what about this year?
All this will eventually be resolved in the form of layoff conversations:
I'm sorry for my incompetence, and you're ashamed of thousands of helpless employees to survive with a broken arm.
Now, let's talk about the young people who enjoy watching capitalists fall, big business collapse, and SMEs lack a holistic view. Perhaps nothing can stop them from impulsively optimistic hormonal impulses.
However, I share one point with Yu Minhong: they have no way back.
And for us, at least we have seen the scenery, and you don't even know what the scenery is.
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