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At present, under the current situation of "difficult employment" and "difficult to enter the factory", labor-intensive jobs in some areas are still facing "recruitment panic", especially in the peak season or during the "618" and "Double 11" shopping carnivals, some businesses are facing the dilemma of surging orders but it is difficult to have enough temporary workers.
Li Ting, an associate researcher at IPP, pointed out that changes in consumption patterns, industrial production patterns, and workers' employment concepts are comprehensively affecting the production rhythm of enterprises, which in turn will affect the order of the labor market. She believes that according to the changes in the employment concept of workers, the appropriate guidance of the production rhythm of enterprises, and the active adjustment of the production rhythm of enterprises, may be an effective solution to the current problem of "difficulty in recruitment".
In the context of employment difficulties, some enterprises are still facing difficulties in recruitment. The factors influencing this issue are multifaceted.
The change in the pace of production is one of the reasons for this problem.
This thought originated from an exchange with a company. When talking about the difficulty of recruitment, a manager of an auto parts factory told us that the recruitment difficulty of their company is mainly reflected in the recruitment of temporary workers. With the economic downturn and increased order volatility, hiring temporary workers has become the main way for companies to solve the problem of volatile orders. Although the number of temporary workers in the current labor market is increasing, enterprises will still face difficulties in recruiting temporary workers when the busy season coincides with the "618" and "Double 11" activities.
When activities such as "Double Eleven" were carried out, a large number of enterprises had the need to complete urgent orders, and the salaries given were very high, most of which were daily or weekly. This is attractive to casual workers, who are placed in large numbers to fulfill these types of orders. If the busy season coincides with these consumption carnival cycles, it is easy to lose people.
The problem behind this is that the rhythm of production will change, and the order of labor allocation will also change.
The production rhythm refers to the time of product production, including the time distribution and length of the overall completion of the production order, and the time distribution and length of the completion of different links of a single product. Changes in consumption patterns, industrial production patterns, and workers' employment concepts will affect the pace of production, which in turn will affect the order of the labor market.
Carnival-style consumption, centralization of production
"Carnival consumption" such as "Double 11" has become an important trend in current consumption, which has also led to a more heterogeneous production rhythm - the production demand that was originally scattered in different periods needs to be responded to in a short period of time, and the result is that the demand of a large number of enterprises in the temporary labor market has increased and become more concentrated. The impact of this on the entire labor market is that if the carnival period coincides with the peak production season of enterprises, it will lead to the following two dilemmas for enterprises to recruit workers: on the one hand, there is an overall shortage of supply in a short period of time; On the other hand, it is the rigidity of the completion of the "Double 11" order, which makes the wages of temporary workers rise rapidly, and the payment methods are daily or weekly. For ordinary enterprises, considering the impact of the rapid rise in the wages of temporary workers on contract workers, they are generally unable to follow up, and they will face the situation of not being able to recruit temporary workers, and finally can only solve the problem by letting their employees work overtime. From the perspective of workers, their labor concepts and demand for the pace of production are also changing. When recruiting workers, companies have found that there is a general tendency in the current labor market, especially among young workers: they want to work relatively freely, the pace of work is not too tight, and they especially want not to work late shifts.
During the "Double Eleven" consumption carnival, the shortage of industrial workers, express mail handlers, porters and other occupations increased. Source: Xinhua News Agency Changes in consumption patterns have led to the centralized completion of production rhythms in a short period of time, which will inevitably lead to overtime and night shifts for enterprise employees. Or that overtime and night shifts themselves have become more "mandatory". This can also make some companies less attractive to their employees, which in turn affects their recruitment, including permanent workers. Regardless of the wage level, in the same environment, different industries or different links in the industrial chain have different production rhythms, different attractiveness to industrial workers, and different degrees of influence by the general environment. For example, in the garment industry, orders fluctuate greatly, there are many urgent orders, the requirements for production quality are not high, the production time of a single product is short, the production rhythm is compact, the demand for temporary workers is large, the ratio of temporary workers to stable workers may be 7:3 or even higher, the overtime of permanent workers is more rigid and less free, and the overall mobility of industrial workers is greater.
Garment factories in the Pearl River Delta region have a high demand for skilled temporary workers and a high turnover of workers. Source: Xinhua News Agency But some industries such as the mold industry have relatively stable orders, high requirements for product quality, relatively slow production rhythm, and relatively large demand for stable workers, the ratio of temporary workers to permanent workers is often 3:7 or even higher, and the overtime demand of stable workers is more flexible, and industrial workers are relatively stable overall.
A young industrial worker who has worked in a mold factory for six years told us that he used to change jobs often because he could not accept that the production rhythm of many factories was too tight, and there were rigid time limits for each link on the assembly line. Later, the reason why he was able to work in this mold factory for so long was because the production rhythm of this factory was relatively slow under the condition of similar wages, because of the quality requirements, each link would not deliberately limit the completion time, but would only require the overall order volume of the entire team; The time given is also relatively generous, and most of the time you can choose to work overtime or not overtime; If you become the group leader, you don't even have the permission to work the night shift.
On the whole, when the carnival of consumption triggers changes in the pace of production, resulting in changes in the order of the temporary labor market, the former type of industry represented by clothing is more likely to be affected.
Personalized consumption, flexible production
Another change in consumption patterns is personalization, customization, and diversification. The impact of product iteration on production is that the scale of a single order decreases, the order distribution becomes more dispersed, the production cycle becomes shorter, and the production tends to be flexible and flexible, which is manifested in the gradual dominance of the "small single quick reaction" model. In this mode, the production rhythm has also undergone a lot of changes - from the perspective of the whole year, the production time layout is more dispersed, the uncertainty and fluctuation of orders are greater, the time to complete a single order has become shorter, and the pace of completion of different links of a single product has been accelerated. This will bring two changes to the labor market: on the one hand, the demand for temporary workers is increasing; On the other hand, the need to work overtime to fulfill orders has become greater.
The impact of this on different industries or different parts of the same industry also varies. Some technology- and capital-intensive, relatively high value-added and high-concentration industrial links, such as the textile industry, the realization of flexible production is mainly through increasing capital investment to achieve the digitization and intelligence of equipment.
Shanghai Aishida Robot Co., Ltd. shoots the C2M customized unmanned factory scene display. Source: Xinhua News Agency
A textile factory we interviewed in Jinjiang said that the "small single quick reaction" of fabrics is one of the important directions of industrial development. In response to this change, they are increasing the company's flexible production capacity by purchasing more equipment or increasing the flexible production capacity of individual equipment. The labor-intensive, relatively low value-added and relatively low industrial concentration links, such as the garment manufacturing industry, mainly rely on more adequate flexible employment, including increasing the number of flexible employment, improving the degree of flexibility, and changing the way of flexible employment. Although some garment manufacturing companies are also trying to cope with the "small single quick reaction" model through the automation and digitalization of equipment, such as improving the flexible production capacity of sewing machines. However, because the garment industry is relatively scattered, most of the owners are limited in scale, in order to maintain flexibility are operated in an asset-light mode, so the role of this flexible mechanism is very limited, and most enterprises can only rely on flexible employment to achieve flexible production. Therefore, the proportion of temporary workers recruited by enterprises is gradually increasing, the time for a single recruitment is getting shorter and shorter, and the number of weekly and even daily workers is gradually increasing in the garment manufacturing industry. Comparatively speaking, the garment manufacturing industry is more susceptible to the impact of the "small single quick reaction" model. This is mainly reflected in the increased demand for flexible staffing. The carnival of consumption has led to the centralization of production and the transformation of the temporary labor market, and the impact of the "small single quick response" model has further exacerbated the recruitment difficulties of such industries or these links in the "carnival period" of consumption.
To sum up, regulating the pace of production may be one of the means to deal with the difficulty of recruitment. First of all, you can try to properly guide and debug the consumption pattern and consumption cadence. Consumption personalization, as the basic law of social development, has relatively little room for regulation. However, for the "carnivalization" of consumption, on the basis of comprehensively considering its contribution and negative effects, there is a certain space and necessity for its moderate regulation. According to the changes in the employment concept of laborers, it is also one of the possible ways to guide the production rhythm of enterprises and actively adjust the production rhythm of enterprises. On this basis, guiding laborers to adapt to the objective changes in the laws of production and appropriately adjusting their labor concepts can also be used as a supplementary method. ★ The author of this article is Li Ting, associate researcher of the Institute of Public Policy, South China University of Technology
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About IPP
The Institute of Public Policy (IPP) of South China University of Technology is an independent, non-profit research platform for knowledge innovation and public policy. IPP has carried out a series of research work on China's institutional reform, social policy, China's discourse power and international relations, and on this basis, a good pattern of coordinated development of knowledge innovation and policy consultation has been formed. IPP's vision is to build an open platform for knowledge innovation and policy research, and to become a world-leading Chinese think tank.