Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On the one hand, they choose to leave because they earn less; on the other hand, the decline in orders reduces the scale of recruitment.

Author / IT Times trainee reporter Jia Tianrong

Editor / Qian Lifu Sun Yan

On the afternoon of March 28, at the gate of Shanghai Changshuo Technology Co., Ltd., 30-year-old Zhao Tuo (a pseudonym) walked slowly out of the factory with a suitcase and a large woven bag. After working here for three months, today he is going to leave overnight and return to his hometown in Shanxi to "find another way out."

Like Zhao Tuo, there are not a few people who recently left Pegatron, a famous Apple contract factory. The reason for leaving is simple: with the end of the three-month high-paying hourly work cycle, their income has fallen.

On the other side of the coin, according to some recruitment agents and factory brothers and sisters, this year many large-scale electronic contract factories have reduced the scale of recruitment because of the transfer of production lines, which is also obviously reflected in the recruitment rebate, which has shrunk from as high as 10,000 yuan in the past to 300 to 400 yuan now.

Brother and sister of the factory and the "spring" of the electronics contract factory, where are they?

1. High-priced hourly workers can earn money on the eve of the Spring Festival this year. Zhao Tuo, who used to work in his hometown factory, heard that Shanghai Changshuo factory was recruiting high-priced hourly workers, whose income was much higher than his salary in his hometown. So he came here through the labor dispatch company and signed a short-term contract for three months.

"in my hometown, I earn less than 4000 yuan a month, so I really can't make any money. I can earn an average of 8000 yuan a month in the past three months when I came to Prosperity." Zhao Tuo told the IT Times that in Pegatron, the salary can reach 42 yuan per hour in the first month and drop to 30 yuan per hour in the second month. From the third month, the salary will be calculated on the basis of equal pay for equal work, with a fixed base salary of 2590 yuan, plus overtime pay. Except for short-term high-paid hourly workers, equal pay for equal work was not attractive to Zhao Tuo, and the friends who came with him chose to leave after the first month of work.

Zhao Tuo majored as a welder at a technical school, but he felt that he had "not learned any skills sufficient to make a living". At first, he worked in his hometown hotel for a period of time, 5000 yuan a month, and felt that he "didn't make much money." So in recent years, he lingered in the assembly line of the electronics factory and became a factory brother.

In Zhao Tuo's view, working in an electronics factory depends on "luck." factory workers cannot decide their own positions, and the content and intensity of their work are all distributed by the system. When he first came to Changshuo, he was assigned to the post of warehouse manager, the job was relatively easy, and then was transferred to the production line by the system.

According to Zhao Tuo, the production line has to work 10 hours a day, and the work is not easy, especially for screws the size of rice grains are drilled into the mobile phone with an electric drill. A mobile phone has to hit 2-8 screws. Under normal circumstances, the factory worker has to complete the workload of 750 mobile phones a day, otherwise the money will be deducted. In the first week of the rookie period, Zhao Tuo completed the workload of up to 350 mobile phones a day, and the factory will give the first half a month or so to adapt, and after proficiency, he will gradually reach the standard. Some very skilled workers can call 1200 mobile phones a night.

"compared with my hometown, I can still save some money." Zhao Tuo's daily expenses in Shanghai are not high. He lives in a dormitory for eight people provided by the company, but it is usually not full. On weekdays, he does not have any extra expenses except for meals. "he has less social interaction and does not have much in-depth communication with colleagues. At most, he will have dinner together."

After the end of the three-month high-priced hourly contract, if you choose to renew the contract, your income will be greatly reduced, minus the expenses or even less than the income of working in your hometown factory, so Zhao Tuo is going to go back and take a break and look for new job opportunities.

2. Once paid back more than NT $10,000, now as low as NT $300 or NT $400, like Zhao Tuo, there are many brothers and sisters who come to Changshuo for the high-priced hourly workers during the Spring Festival. After the contract period has arrived these days, many people have chosen to leave.

Apple's largest contract factory in Shanghai, which employs more than 80,000 people at its peak, is now much smaller. Some factory workers said, "at present, the efficiency of the factory is not good. Some of the recruited staff will be transferred to the Kunshan factory because there are not so many people needed here."

Xu Li (a pseudonym) came to Shang Shuo from a new energy factory in Fujian in August last year, when he signed a high-priced hourly worker of 32 yuan per hour and received equal pay for equal work from the third month. "now he works overtime for about 5000 yuan a month." He had planned to leave after three months, but he stayed for the time being because he met his girlfriend here.

For two people, the most expensive thing on weekdays is the cost of renting out. Even in the suburbs of Shanghai, the rent plus utilities costs about 2000 yuan a month. Xu Li, 23, said bluntly: "unless you live frugally, you can't make money at all."

"there are only three or four of the eight assembly lines in the factory, and the equipment on many production lines has been transferred abroad." Xu Li, who works in the equipment management department of Changshuo, said that in recent months, with fewer orders and less overtime, the income of front-line factory workers has also been greatly reduced. In the past, factory workers dispatched through labor services could get a maximum recommendation fee of about 8000 yuan. At the lowest time, it was 3000 yuan, which is now "equivalent to nothing."

"not to mention the return fee, you had to pay upside down if you wanted to come to work in Changshuo a few months ago." A local recruitment agent told the IT Times that at present, there is no shortage of people in large electronics companies in Shanghai, and the highest return fee of more than 10,000 is now only 300 to 400 yuan. "now the benefit is not good. Many of the people recruited by Chang Shuo have been transferred to Kunshan, and many young people have gone back after asking about the situation, because they do not have a job."

According to the intermediary, the efficiency of some large-scale electronic contract factories has declined and orders have decreased this year. In order to reduce costs, these large electronic manufacturers are quietly moving abroad, and the demand for factory workers has also been greatly reduced.

A person from Foxconn's digital product business group said that since the beginning of this year, orders in Zhengzhou and Shenzhen have declined, recruitment has not started until March, and the employment gap at his Taiyuan factory is also small, and the wages are not very ideal. Some people are already full while they are still waiting. "A lot of domestic orders have gone to India, and last year we already had a large number of cadres traveling to India, and it may be sooner or later." This person said.

3. Where is the spring of contract factories and workers? It is not just the major contract factories in Apple's industrial chain that will be affected. Wang Ke (a pseudonym), 26, is an assembly line worker at a large new energy factory in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province. His job is to assemble battery modules and is responsible for the simple operation of some automation equipment. Wang Ke works 11 hours a day on the production line when he is busy and 8 hours when the production task is light.

Wang Ke told the IT Times that the demand for production line workers in his new energy company began to drop sharply at the end of last year, and the company has basically stopped recruiting front-line operators. Many front-line operators work eight hours a day, five days a week, and some workers are even forced to rest.

On the other hand, Wang Ke also said that the environment of the enterprise workshop has changed greatly in the past two years. The new workshop is already a constant temperature workshop, the human body feels comfortable, and some high-intensity jobs are replaced by automation equipment.

Wang Ke has been working on the production line for three years, and his salary fluctuates between 7000 yuan and 10000 yuan per month according to the length of overtime, while the income of many local front-line operators is far below this level. According to his introduction, his company has an age threshold for recruiting production line workers, with men no more than 40 and women no more than 38. According to its observation, at present, most of the production line employees are between 20 and 30 years old, and those over 35 years old are rare.

Although the factory does not have strict requirements on the academic qualifications of front-line workers, they will also determine different levels of workers according to their academic qualifications. "different levels vary in salary and work intensity, and low-level workers can only do some manual labor." With the improvement of the working years, experience and ability of front-line workers, the level will be improved accordingly.

Li Hua (a pseudonym), a senior headhunter who has been engaged in blue-collar recruitment in the manufacturing industry in the Yangtze River Delta region for a long time, told the IT Times that since the first quarter of this year, orders from manufacturing enterprises have declined, including electronics, machinery and other industries, resulting in an oversupply of the job market. This year is different. The enterprise is short of ten people, and there will be 70 or 80 people to apply for the job. "

Li Hua said that under such circumstances, electronics factory workers who originally came to the Yangtze River Delta to choose a job will return to their hometown after being unable to find a job for a long time. People who cannot find a job in the manufacturing industry will also look for employment opportunities in the service industry, such as takeout workers, waiters, ride-hailing drivers, webcasts, and so on.

"judging from our return visits to hundreds of customers, the manufacturing industry is currently facing some pressure. In the past, they could foresee orders for half a year or even a year, but now they can predict a trend of 1-2 months at most." According to Li Hua, in the absence of orders and demand, most manufacturing companies will reduce shifts and staff. "since the beginning of this year, some companies have moved to markets such as Southeast Asia and India, and the situation might be even less optimistic were it not for the imperfect supply chains in those regions." Li Hua said.

According to CCTV, Vietnam and India have become the new hot spots of global semiconductor supply chain transfer in recent years. Apple has been committed to promoting "supply chain diversification" in recent years, and India is one of the supply chain transfer destinations. However, it is reported that the qualified rate of some of Apple's products made in India is only 50%.

Apple has been assembling low-end iPhone in India since 2017, and in October last year, Apple announced plans to produce its latest model in India. For now, however, Apple's factories in India are limited to assembling components such as panels, chips and enclosures, and much of it still depends on Chinese suppliers.

Against this background, some analysts believe that Apple is still unlikely to leave China's efficient production system completely in the short term.

But what is certain is that under the background of promoting supply chain diversification, both enterprises and front-line "factory brothers and sisters" will usher in new challenges in the wave of industrial transfer and industrial transformation.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: IT Times (ID:vittimes), by Jia Tianrong

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