The Strange Phenomenon Of Shoe Enterprises: "Layoff Fever" And "Labor Shortage"

For many shoe companies, especially the processing trade shoe factories in the Pearl River Delta region, this year suffered serious problems.

This year's booming Foxconn jumping incident is precisely the result of this kind of defect being concentrated to the extreme. The cruel fact of "Thirteen consecutive jumping" has made the survival state of the workers become the focus of attention from all walks of life.

In this social discussion, the footwear industry should have seen many familiar words and familiar viewpoints, and should also reflect on and take precautions.

Although the footwear industry has not yet seen such large-scale excesses, problems such as labor conflicts, low sense of belonging and mobility have been in the footwear industry for a long time, which is the main reason for the difficulty of recruitment.

As we all know, the migrant workers who are now working in cities are new human beings born in the 80s and 90s of last century. The implementation of family planning has made the absolute quantity of this population unable to match the "working force" in the 90s of last century. The improvement of education level, the improvement of rural living conditions and the acceleration of urbanization have greatly dispersed the employment of rural labor force. The goal of these young people to work in cities has changed from their "basic survival" to their "decent life".

Their desire is no longer working hard and working hard all year, sending money home to support their families and no longer satisfied with selling their cheap labor mechanically and repeatedly. This is also the inevitable result of the awakening of human consciousness and the progress of thinking after social development.

Migrant workers are eager to integrate into the city and change their own destiny. It is in this era background that the daily work of the streamlined work in the shoe factory is much more attractive to the current migrant workers.

Is it a good way to raise salaries and move inland?

The first measure taken by Foxconn for jumping out of buildings is a raise. It is reported that the maximum increase has been as high as 66%.

As a means of crisis public relations, Foxconn hopes to pacify the staff of panic.

It is also before and after the move of Foxconn that several cities in the Pearl River Delta region have announced the raising of minimum wage standards, for example, Guangzhou has been pferred from 860 yuan to 1030 yuan per month, and Dongguan has been pferred from 770 yuan to 920 yuan a month. Shenzhen has been pferred from the special zone within 1000 yuan / month to 900 yuan / month outside the special zone to 1100 yuan / month.

Next, it triggered a nationwide wage increase. Since then, more than a dozen provinces and municipalities have raised the minimum wage in China, increasing by an average of more than 10%.

Salary increase is also the best way to attract employees in the labor shortage factories. The increase of interest is undoubtedly the most intuitive and attractive.

In Wenzhou's private shoe enterprises, in recent years, after the Spring Festival, employees will be awarded bonuses to employees who have returned to the factory early.

As early as this year, the government adjusted the minimum wage standard. In Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang and other places, shoe enterprises had already mentioned their wages in order to solve the difficulty of recruiting workers, but how effective they were, and they knew all about the shoemaking industry.

The fundamental problem of China's labor shortage now is that there has been a clear contradiction between China's labor costs and its profit model.

Even if the enterprise raises the salary within the limits of its ability, but hundreds of dollars per month can not solve the practical problems in life. The average remuneration per hour of Chinese manufacturing workers is still only 6% of the US hourly wage. The welfare benefits of the elderly, housing, children's education, medical care and so on, which are urgently needed to be solved by Chinese workers, are still unreachable. Hundreds of dollars in monthly wages can not catch up with the soaring housing prices in China, which can only offset the soaring prices of Chinese rice and oil. Chinese shoes still can not afford cheap labor to produce cheap goods and earn the smallest profits.

The second measure taken by Foxconn is to move inland, pfer the production line of Shenzhen to the inland provinces, reduce the cost of labor and relieve the pressure of employment.

This move is no longer a novelty in the shoe industry. A few years ago, "East shoes moved westward" has become a hot topic in the industry.

Industry follows the migration of the cost of land, manpower, resources and so on. This is the behavior determined by economic laws. However, what we do not want to see is simply following the low cost of enterprise migration, continuing to replicate the low profit processing mode in the inland provinces, and then facing the same embarrassment after a few years.

The process of economic integration in China is accelerating, and the difference between urban and rural areas is shrinking rapidly. How many years can the cost gap between Sichuan and Guangdong maintain? How many years can Henan's low-cost labor resources be used for the relocation of enterprises?

What is doubtful is that Chinese shoe factories can continue to move to the middle and continue to rely on low labor costs to survive.