Way back on November 26th I wrote about how the global financial crisis will hurt China much more the United States. Paul Denlinger, at China Vortex, wrote about some of the small but telling signs of economic hardship that he’s seen. Peking Duck wrote about the shattered dreams of China’s youth as evidenced by the newly launched bujingqi (Slumping Economy) community website, reported by WSJ China Journal.
Graduate students competing to sell pork…
But I was the most surprised by chinaSMACK’s post (source: Sina BBS) on 1300 graduate students in South China competing to sell pork:
photo courtesy chinaSMACK and wherever they grabbed the photo
It seems that Chinese graduates are just accepting the competitive nature of the world and getting out there to try to get a job selling pork. I have no idea why the pork retailer in Guangzhou is paying 80,000 to 100,000 RMB for salespeople. Is this some kind of high end pork that requires expert, consultative selling from young, enthusiastic Sun-Yat Sen University graduates? Is this the equivalent of the Starbucks’ strategy for pork?
My point is that people seem to be willing to eat bitterness and accept the tough realities of life in China today.
Peking Duck expressed a feeling that I share:
I’m glad at least that in China people are psychologically prepared for the worst. I had a sense, totally unscientific, that people in America were less well prepared, if only because crisis and deprivation have been so distant from them for so many years, even for generations. American’s appear far more shell-shocked than the Chinese.
…while American UAW workers and fat-cat Auto company executives remain in denial
Apparently, no one wants to eat bitterness in Detroit. I read a post by Shel Israel entitled Why I’m shedding no tears for Detroit that captures the denial of UAW leadership:
When the head of the UAW termed a temporary pay reduction to $49 an hour “unacceptable,” I wondered just who that was unacceptable and if he really did prefer the $0 an hour that the other side of his mouth said was coming.
But what was absolutely infuriating to Shel was management’s lack of a plan:
What got me to oppose it was that these guys, sitting before our Congress were the very guys who got us into this mess and they were proposing to be the guys we financed to get us out of it. They had no plan, displayed no vision and demonstrated the same lack of leadership that are at the nexus of the problem we are in.
…and American consumers learn an interesting new technique: don’t buy stuff you cannot afford!
Well, I’m not sure how this is all going to turn out. But here’s a funny skit (length 2:28) from Saturday Night Live (h/t The Big Picture) that might give American consumers a few pointers of how our new deleveraged world might work:
Hulu…doesn’t…work…outside…of…the…States…bastard…Americans…
Pork has panache, okay. It can put a smile on people’s face. People who sell it deserve to be compensated. Enjoy pork!
Those positions are for the trainees of the company’s future executives, and selling pork is only part of some trainees’ first year’s training program, not a permanent job.
Is that blogger reading too much out of the hiring or is he intentional cooking up the story? Or is it because the employer wanted free press? Whichever the case this has very little to do with the coming recession. 80K to 100K is definitely a good starting salary, recession or not.
http://www.gzautosky.cn/article/show.php?itemid=4593
… 签约的硕士生将作为天地食品集团下属分公司(事业部)未来总监、副总、总经理的培养对象。按规定，35名硕士生在第一年均为“见习管理培训期”，虽然所挂职位均为集团或各分公司总监助理、副总助理、总经理助理或部门负责人等职位，但在试用期内将接受全面考察。
据介绍，考察内容包括被分配到最基层猪肉摊档售卖猪肉，或到上游养殖场喂养家禽，或试管一个区域的营销、经营，基层实践期限半年至一年不等，期满再根据每个人不同能力和特长优势，视才任用。
Thanks for clarifying this. I didn’t get this important detail from the original chinaSMACK article.
I don’t see the bitter-eating aspect of getting paid 100,000 RMB to work retail. The only way I see the degree-holding pork involving any humbling is due to Chinese attitudes about social class – a scholar isn’t suppose to get his hands dirty. I believe that Sina post says the average starting salary is about 5-6000 RMB… so if you aren’t a snob about your degree and you like money, I think you’d want the pork selling job.
Conversely, the UAW guys are being asked to actually be payed less, not more. Not saying they’re right or wrong, just the comparison seems a bit off.
Yes, totally right about the logical inconsistencies Dave. Especially in the context of a management trainee program there is nothing wrong with paying your dues. I got linkbaited by chinaSMACK into reacting to the post as a symbol of how difficult things are in China these days and that people will just respond and handle it as best they can.
On the other hand, the UAW are whiners and are asking to maintain $74/hr wages when their counterparts at Toyota in the US are making $48. But as I mentioned, its not the union guys that irk, its the incompetent and unrepentant Auto company execs that deserve to fry.
What absolute nonsense that anyone would get paid that kind of money to sell meat in China. Maybe 2000 a month. Wake the f*** up morons. WHo honestly believes these articles.
I’m not sure why the UAW comes in for so much blame. It seems an awful lot like the transit workers strike in New York City a couple years ago: we should be excited by the fact that at least one group of working people is getting what it deserves for hard, intelligent labor, but instead, there’s this endless carping about how it’s an outrage for someone without such and such degree to be earning x or y.
What davesgontchina says about “Chinese attitudes about social class” fits the U.S., too. Yet another situation where the two countries aren’t so different.
Peking Duck is right. The US system was created to avoid disaster, and to succeed and grow long term. My personal feeling is that the US is now beginning to experience what emerging economies have experienced for decades — volatility, uncertainty, no proof of concept.
Ironically, this is happening AFTER the US became the most successful economy in the world, and it is doing so precisely because it was the most successful. When you set the standards, there is no shortage to invention, anything can happen, you can create anything. I think that regulators, financial people and the engineers of some of the wackiest derivatives known to man decided that because they were the best they would create things out of thin air and define a new economy.
Do you see this irony? The US is now like the rest of the world. It took a good thing and OVER innovated it, bringing them around full circle to an age of uncertainty, volatility and lack of proof of concept.
What are we going to do with all those Investment Bankers? I say we make them sell pork!