The highest monthly salary is 14,000, and the 60-something is not too old: why the manufacturing industry still can’t recruit people
High salaries have not solved the labor shortage challenge in the manufacturing industry.
While employee compensation is in place, companies should strengthen the management of the new generation of blue-collar employees, and at the same time pay attention to the promotion and development of blue-collar personnel, as well as the cultivation of skilled talents.
Speaking of the challenge of recruiting workers, Zeng Xiansheng, general manager of Suzhou Mengshi Intelligent Vehicle Technology Co., Ltd. seemed rather helpless: "Don't mention it, can it be difficult?"
Approximately 7 million to 8 million graduates from universities each year, this year is a historical record of 9.09 million, but China's manufacturing industry is still facing the embarrassing situation of perennial shortage of people.
In the words of Zeng Xiansheng, young people prefer the Internet industry and service industry after graduation. In their eyes, the "low and uncool" manufacturing industry is the bottom choice after express delivery and takeaway.
On the other side of the difficulty in recruiting workers, the wages of manufacturing workers have risen.
"There are hundreds of workers in the workshop with a monthly salary of over 10,000." Xia Tiansheng, chairman of Zhejiang Quzhou Hengye Auto Parts Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Quzhou Hengye"), told China Business News that the workers with the highest wages this month have 14,000 yuan, the lowest is more than 6,000 yuan.
However, high salaries have not solved the labor shortage challenge in the manufacturing industry.
According to the "First-line Blue Collar Labor Shortage Survey Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") of the human capital data center CIIC Consulting, nearly 70% of the companies participating in the survey are experiencing labor shortage problems, and 13% have labor shortage problems all year round.
The survey results also stated that nearly 60% of enterprises’ labor shortages are manifested as a shortage of skilled blue-collar or general-purpose operators, and 24% of enterprises said that all their blue-collar workers have a shortage of labor.
Behind the difficulty in recruiting is a large gap in talents matching the manufacturing industry.
The so-called matching, the willingness of young people to enter the factory has increasingly become a more important factor than technical ability.
Recruitment is "not required", and it is also recruited for more than 60 years old
In order to recruit workers, manufacturing companies continue to relax recruitment conditions.
"You only need to graduate from junior high school and be 18 years old." Qian Li, the public affairs director of Lenovo Group's world's largest PC R&D and manufacturing base in Hefei, Anhui, told China Business News that the company will arrange a week or two before employees start. Intensive training.
Zeng Xiansheng told China Business News that in recent years, companies have all relaxed the requirements for education and age for recruiting workers.
For example, in the workshops, employees over 45 years old were not recruited, but now they are relaxed to almost 50 years old. In the past, the office or sales staff were required to graduate from college at 22 years old, but now they can be 20 years old before they graduate. The academic qualifications are basically ignored. You will also be required to graduate from university. The only condition now is whether you can do things well."
In order to meet the increased orders, Quzhou Hengye expanded a production line after the start of the Spring Festival this year, and the recruitment of employees for an additional shift took longer than expected.
Xia Tiansheng said frankly that, let alone college graduates, young people who graduated from vocational and technical schools are not willing to work in factories.
Therefore, they are also constantly relaxing the requirements, "sometimes there is no way, people in their 60s may also recruit."
According to the "Report", in the face of labor shortage, about 70% of enterprises choose to expand recruitment channels or broaden their employment methods to deal with it.
In addition to the requirements for academic qualifications and age, the factory's requirements for the skills of the employees themselves are also constantly decreasing, the purpose is to make the scope of matching talents wider.
Chen Yuyan, secretary of the board of directors of Zhejiang Zhuji Diai Intelligent Control Technology Co., Ltd., told CBN that the factory has consciously reduced the requirements for skilled workers through automation transformation.
"Those auxiliary work types can be easily operated with the help of automated machines."
There are year-end bonuses and dividends in addition to the salary of over 10,000
In addition to relaxing recruitment requirements, expanding recruitment channels, and broadening employment patterns, most manufacturing companies are using ways to increase salaries and benefits to attract "scarce" workers.
On the afternoon of April 21st, as one of the top ten industrial counties in Zhejiang, Zhuji Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security came to Zhejiang Sci-Tech University in Hangzhou with 26 companies and more than 1,000 jobs, and offered the highest annual salary. Up to 800,000 yuan.
Except for the case with an annual salary of 800,000 yuan, it is not uncommon for many blue-collar jobs to earn a monthly salary of more than 10,000 yuan, which is not inferior to some popular Internet or service industry positions.
"Now regardless of whether the company is profitable or not, we will talk to employees about year-end bonuses. 13 or 14 salary is the norm." Zeng Xiansheng said that the company's current salary structure is basic salary plus performance, plus monthly dividends. "In the past, there were few manufacturing industries. I want to pay dividends now." That is to say, as long as the employees perform well, the company will pay more to employees if they are profitable.
In addition to wages, performance and dividends, as well as the five social insurances and one housing fund paid in accordance with national regulations, the related benefits provided by manufacturing companies to employees are also increasing.
"Now birthday parties, team building expenses, hometown fare, and various holiday expenses, there are so many items that give employees benefits." According to Zeng Xiansheng's rough estimate, these individual items don't seem to be much expenditure, and they add up to an average of For an employee, it is equivalent to an increase of about 20% in cost.
Coupled with the annual increase in wages by about 10%, labor costs began to be the same as rent, occupying a large part of the total cost of enterprises.
The "Report" shows that in 2020, more than 70% of companies will increase the salary of blue-collar workers.
Among them, over 40% of the companies’ salary adjustments are below 5%, and over 20% of the companies’ salary adjustments are between 6% and 8%.
It is estimated that nearly 90% of companies will adjust the salary of blue-collar workers this year, an increase of 13% compared to 2020. Among them, the proportion of companies with salary adjustments of less than 5% is the same as that of companies with salary adjustments of 6% to 8%. , Both reached 38%.
Chen Yuyan said that the company's benefits have always been relatively comprehensive, and the paid leave and transfer mechanism are also relatively flexible.
Since the second half of last year, the company has also increased expenditures of nearly 5 million yuan a year to provide employees with free three meals. “Considering that young people may have poor control over consumption, the company provides free meals. Don’t worry about eating at work.”
At the same time, the environment of the workshop is also improving, and some facilities such as air-conditioning are specially installed.
"Generally speaking, the effect of pushing the needs of manufacturing companies to colleges and universities is not very satisfactory." Cai Jiannan from the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau of Zhuji City told China Business News that they will do a lot of communication and homework in advance. It will focus on looking for graduates who have come to Hangzhou from outside Zhejiang Province to study and hope to stay in Zhejiang but the cost of staying in Hangzhou is too high, or young people who are from Zhuji, to "try it."
In terms of recruiting workers in the manufacturing industry, Cai Jiannan believes that the government and colleges and universities are very supportive, but in the end it depends on the enterprises themselves.
The main thing the government can do is to help companies do a good job of early communication, and accurately bring the companies and their needs to the provinces and universities where the demand for employees is greater.
At the special job fair in the afternoon, Zhejiang Chuangge Technology Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Liufang Carbon Technology Co., Ltd., and Zhuji Hangfeng Knitting Textile Co., Ltd. signed contracts with Zhejiang Sci-Tech University to build an employment internship and internship base. The purpose is to better Attract young people.
Young people's low willingness to enter the factory is the main reason
According to the "Report", 90% of enterprises believe that the reason for the blue-collar labor shortage is the low willingness of young people to engage in first-line blue-collar jobs.
"Young people with talents don't want to come. Without this fact, there is no way to come." Zeng Xiansheng said that even if the salary offered by manufacturing factories is more competitive than some jobs in Internet companies, they will still give priority to the selection. By.
In Zeng Xiansheng's view, behind the low willingness of young people to enter factories is that society generally does not respect the operators or craftsmen who rely on technology for food. The so-called "blue collar" in China has not gained enough dignity.
This discrimination may be more serious among young people.
Chen Yuyan attributed the unwillingness of young people to "love freedom."
She believes that young people now like free work and have a high demand for free deployment of time.
Therefore, emerging service industries such as express delivery, food delivery and online car-hailing are more attractive to them than working in factories.
After all, factories still have to work overtime according to production tasks, and sometimes they need to shift work.
"The management of workers in our workshops will be relatively militarized. They must go to work on time and not use mobile phones during get off work." Qian Li clearly felt that the rise of the tertiary industry would encourage young people with medium education levels to choose jobs in the manufacturing industry. This has had an impact, and the richer and freer choices divert a large number of young people.
Compared with ordinary white-collar jobs, Xia Tiansheng also believes that working in the factory is still hard after all, "may have to work 28 days a month, and may have to do 10-12 hours a day."
Liu Yong, born in the 90s from Jiangxi, worked as a general worker at Foxconn, Shenzhen from 2011 to 2015.
Speaking of why he left Foxconn's manufacturing industry, Liu Yong told China Business News that the main reason was that he often worked overtime and turned black and white. The biological clock was disrupted and his body couldn't bear it.
Another reason is that the manufacturing industry is dominated by factories, the work procedures are repetitive and boring, the intensity is high, the promotion space is small, and the level is low. "Girls or mother-in-laws don't like it."
Under the influence of "young people cannot be content with the status quo, they must bravely jump out", Liu Yong resolutely chose to resign.
After leaving the factory, he started a business and opened a restaurant, and then switched to a delivery company as a truck driver. His salary was 6,000 to 7,000 yuan, which was slightly higher than the previous salary of about 5,000 yuan at Foxconn.
However, he said that as a driver now, he has more maneuver time at work, and he can also develop different part-time jobs, such as delivering deliveries to others by the way, and running takeaways after get off work. The salary plus part-time express delivery can sometimes reach 10,000 yuan a month. yuan.
"It's impossible to enter the factory to be a blue-collar worker. I can't sit still." Liu Yong said.
Promote the post-95 supervisors and turn blue collars into purple collars
Since the low willingness of young people to enter the factory is the main reason for the shortage of labor, the above-mentioned "report" proposes that while the salary of employees is in place, enterprises should strengthen the management of the new generation of blue-collar employees, and at the same time pay attention to the promotion and development of blue-collar personnel and the development of skilled talents. bring up.
This is indeed the direction that many manufacturing companies are trying to improve.
"We will now take the initiative to promote post-95 supervisors and let young people manage young people." Zeng Xiansheng said that the original head of personnel administration was born in the 70s, but now it has been replaced by young people born in 1998. Now the post-90s supervisors in the factory account for It has been as high as half, and three years ago, the post-90s generation was still new.
On March 25 this year, Lenovo Group’s "Purple Collar Project" was officially launched. The project aims to form a collaborative cooperation between Lenovo Education, Lenovo Supply Chain and Lenovo Charity Foundation, running through all stages of the growth of vocational talents, thus forming a smart manufacturing What is required is a compound talent who is familiar with the actual manufacturing process and the corresponding technical theory, and has both hands-on ability and management innovation ability, that is, "purple collar" talent.
"It is equivalent to giving young workers a chance to go to college." Qian Li said.
At this year’s National Two Sessions, Miao Wei, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and deputy director of the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, stated that it is necessary to speed up the construction of a talent team that supports the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry, and penetrate the “skilled workers-skilled talents-highly skilled talents-big country craftsmen” Growth channels and development paths allow employees to have a way out and rush.
Driven by the epidemic, new models such as unmanned factories, smart workshops, and smart logistics have accelerated their penetration and popularization.
For enterprises, it is the only way to upgrade the manufacturing industry by introducing more intelligent manufacturing to reduce the dependence of some types of work on labor.
Author: Miao Qi