At the beginning of the new year, news about the "labor shortage" made the front page headlines of major newspapers. This seems to have become an unchanging topic every year after the Spring Festival. The redwood industry has also not escaped this spell. Companies frequently raise salaries, recruitment conditions are relaxed again and again, and recruitment methods are more diversified. Faced with such favorable conditions, why does the labor shortage hit the redwood industry again? Is the media crying "wolf", or is the wolf really here?
After understanding the employment situation of redwood furniture companies in Zhongshan, Dongyang, Shenzhen, Xianyou and other places, we found that a few years ago, even before the New Year was over, many companies had crowds of workers from the south looking for opportunities at their gates. In recent years, redwood furniture companies in the Zhongshan area began to open for business on the eighth day of the first lunar month, but many factories could not start work because the workers were not in place.
As soon as the word "labor shortage" appears, the media follows up with reports. Many workers do not know the meaning of the patterns they carve every day, do not understand the connotation of redwood furniture, do not know how many production bases the redwood industry has, and do not know the current state of the industry. However, under the extensive coverage by the media and the word-of-mouth spread among workers, they learned about the employment situation in traditional industries and believed that they should be "rare and valuable". Thus, they seized this soft spot of the company, if negotiations fail in one company, they decisively look for another. Nowadays, every year, the wages of workers are no longer determined by the companies. Workers' expectations of companies are too high, leading to the contradiction phenomenon where factories cannot hire workers and workers cannot find suitable companies.
Since the media has been reporting on the labor shortage in the redwood industry year after year in recent years, why are there still so many workers looking for jobs? Although the redwood industry also has labor problems, why has it become increasingly serious under the media's reports in recent years?
In recent years, the term "labor shortage" always goes hand in hand with major companies recruiting people. Compared to twenty years ago, when China's southeastern coastal economy rapidly developed and companies had a large demand for labor resources, thus creating the "migrant worker tide," now there indeed is a "migrant worker shortage" phenomenon. Redwood enterprises similarly have not escaped the embarrassing situation of having people without work to do and having work without people to do it. It seems that the wolf is really here. Looking at 2012, affected by the overall economic environment, many industries are not developing well, prices soar, and the original wages are difficult for workers to adapt to the high living costs in big cities. Therefore, workers begin to demand higher wages to make up for the deficiencies in their lives. Some people even start being unwilling to work in the coastal big cities, thus forming the situation of having work but no one to do it. Secondly, some workers worry that the industry is not prosperous, the production volume of companies decreases, and workers cannot get the expected wages, so they hope that companies can increase wages to compensate for the loss caused by fewer orders. This fear of having people without work psychologically makes many workers take an observing attitude at the beginning of the year, choosing to join whichever company has better economic benefits, thus causing the phenomenon of "workers coming to find jobs but no one actually working."
Regardless of whether the media is really shouting "wolf," or whether the current social and economic environment tells us that the wolf is really here, we will not delve into it for now. But the media's reports indeed make many workers form a psychology that drives wage increases, adding fuel to the already gradually tightening labor situation in the redwood industry. From this, we can see that if the media does not grasp the "degree" in its reports, it will not only be detrimental to the healthy development of the industry, but also lose its own due value. (Source: China Classical Furniture Network, reporter Tian Tian)