Photo source: Visual China
From pig farm to battery factory
"Equipment is everywhere." This is what Pang Wei saw when he first stepped into the factory of Ningde Times, the leading power battery enterprise in China, in March 2022 and 1993.
With the introduction of his colleagues, he looked around curiously. There were few workers in the workshop, mixing, coating, roll dividing and die cutting. The whole assembly line was lined with dozens or even hundreds of equipment, operating in a highly automated way.
The power battery is a complex system, including positive pole, negative pole, diaphragm, electrolyte, collector, binder, conductive agent and many other parts. From the most original raw materials such as lithium and graphite to the well-known block by block power batteries, it needs dozens of equipment.
This is not Pang Wei's first time to work in the factory, but it is completely different from the factory environment he worked in before.
Before entering the battery factory, he was the electromechanical director of a pig farm, responsible for the maintenance of the whole plant's machinery and equipment.
Different from the traditional pig farms, the current pig farms are all intelligent and highly automated assembly line pig farms. There is an automatic feeding line for pigs, an automatic scraping machine for shoveling manure, and the temperature and humidity of the pig house are also controlled by computers.
Pang Wei's job is to repair these equipment, and he should be able to notice various abnormal signals sent by the equipment when patrolling the site, and find out and solve problems in time. But even so, the number and types of equipment in pig farms are far from being comparable to highly automated power battery factories.
In 2019, due to the combined effect of African swine fever, environmental protection restrictions and the COVID-19 epidemic, the supply side was insufficient, and pig prices soared, driving the influx of capital from all walks of life. Some enterprises have also invested a lot of money to build pig farms in various places since 2019.
Many pig farms began to expand their enrollment at that time, and Pang Wei caught up with this wave of pig farm expansion. Recalling the scene at that time, Pang Wei sighed, "At that time, he worked in a pig farm, and the salary was quite high.".
But for industries with strong cycles, there are high points and low points. In 2021, the pig industry will enter the cold winter. The sudden increase of enterprise pressure will naturally be transmitted to in-service employees. More and more dimensions of the assessment, so that the pressure on employees increased sharply, and even more "pay can not be issued".
Under the torrent of the times, it is difficult for enterprises to resist the changes of the industrial life cycle. There is no choice but to mediate and struggle in the waves. The migrant workers involved are either forced to roll in or seek other opportunities outside.
By chance, Pang Wei saw the recruitment information of the battery factory from the recruitment website. Although there are many different lines, Pang Wei still wants to have a try. In his opinion, equipment maintenance is the same. "In case it works", Pang Wei submitted his resume with the attitude of trying.
Fortunately, this young man just caught up with the high point of another industry from the low point of one industry. In 2022, due to the shortage of power batteries, the lithium battery production capacity arms race has become a common trend. Guangningde Times and its partners announced at least 10 major investment projects, with a total investment of more than 150 billion yuan.
The most direct manifestation of the expansion shortage is that the educational background is low when recruiting, and the lack of industry experience like Pang Wei gives more opportunities for job seekers from pig enterprises to enter the factory.
"If I had transferred from a pig company this year, they would not have wanted me. In the past, a college degree was OK, but after strict recruitment, it was basically a bachelor's degree." Although a colleague of Pang Wei had a bachelor's degree and majored in electrical engineering, he could only apply for a general worker because he had no work experience.
In the battery factory, the general worker is the most basic position, responsible for the basic operation of the battery production line, such as operating production equipment, checking product quality, assembling batteries, packaging products, etc.
Pang Wei, who considered himself lucky, successfully joined the leading power battery factory of Ningde Times in March 2022 and became a Level 6 technician after going through a series of processes including written examination, interview and recitation.
From pig farms to power battery factories, although they are two completely different industries that need a certain adaptation cycle, Pang Wei is not worried because the underlying principles of electrical machinery are the same.
In the first two months of his employment, Pang Wei followed his colleagues to observe the operation of the equipment on the spot every day. When there was a fault, he first followed the supplier to deal with it, and then slowly explored it himself. Soon he began to deal with some minor faults.
"There is no order, just do some maintenance every day"
Less than two years after switching from a pig farm to a power battery factory, Pang Wei once again encountered the impact of industry cycle changes.
One year after the Ningde era, he moved to the second tier battery manufacturer Yiwei Lithium Energy. The reasons for job hopping are not uncommon: one is that the work is too voluminous, and the other is that the salary is not high.
The salary of Ningde era was only slightly higher than that of pig enterprises when the benefits were the worst, but they had to face more stringent workshop management regulations and more onerous work tasks. "There are cameras everywhere in the workshop, and the Safety and Environment Department will check every day. There are many rules and regulations, so people will feel very tired psychologically and physically."
In the Ningde era, for the sake of safety, when entering the equipment maintenance, the maintenance staff must hang a stop sign and wear a helmet, "these two are the bottom line and the red line". Sometimes, because the production line has a tight production task, the maintenance time should be controlled well, and the maintenance staff will forget about it. Once found, the punishment standard is: joint three levels. Only later did he find that other factories had such safety regulations, but they were not so strict.
After leaving the Ningde era, Pang Wei joined a factory of Yiwei Lithium Energy in February 2023, but the outlook in 2023 is very different from that when he joined the Ningde era.
After the crazy expansion of production, coupled with the slowdown in the growth of new energy vehicles, the phenomenon of overcapacity of power batteries followed. Ningde Times once showed in a notice that in the first half of 2023, the capacity utilization rate of enterprises will decline by 20% compared with the previous year, from 81.25% in the same period of 2022 to 60.5%.
The leading enterprises are still like this, and the second and third tier battery manufacturers are not immune. For example, the well-known battery factory Javert Power has heard the news of shutdown. Although Jiewei Power once responded to the media at the end of November last year that Tianjin Jiewei's main function is management and research and development, and some middle and back office support departments are suspended, Yancheng and Changxing bases are still operating normally. However, for the industry, there are more or less signs of change.
From the second half of 2023, Pang Wei's factory also experienced a sharp decline in orders. There were two or three hundred people leaving the factory with more than 600 people, and more than two hundred people were sent to other factories for support. Pang Wei and the rest of his colleagues did not have much to do. The daily work is to go to the workshop for rust removal and lubrication, and also to cope with assessment and discipline inspection. "I'm bored to death".
Pang Wei's seemingly idle but boring work gave rise to the idea of leaving again.
The periodic overcapacity and the lack of work in the factory may be the main reason for Pang Wei's frequent job hopping, but not all of them. High liquidity has always been the norm in power battery factories.
At the training conference for new employees joining Yiwei Lithium Energy, a training teacher told Pang Wei and his colleagues that those who can stay in the factory for more than one year are considered as old employees.
When asked whether frequent job hopping will affect the job search, Pang Wei calmly replied, "You haven't reached the level of supervisor or manager. Others will consider your stability a little less, but more importantly, whether you can do a good job".
In fact, frequent job hopping did not prevent Pang Wei from finding his next job.
After getting the idea of leaving, Pang Wei was not very anxious. Pang Wei just "Buddha" put his resume on the recruitment website. "If you are interested, talk about it. I didn't volunteer much." Unexpectedly, he soon received the invitation from three battery factories and won the offer.
In the face of three offers, he first ruled out one whose salary performance accounted for too much. "What migrant workers care about is whether the basic salary is high or not, and the performance accounted for 40%, which is too absurd." The salary given by another company is not much different from the current salary, which was also ruled out.
The basic post of screwing is always short of people
In the low pressure employment reality, the power battery factory still maintained its liquidity although it encountered periodic overcapacity. Pang Wei didn't think much of his job hopping. "The basic post of screwing is always short of people."
Pang Wei's hometown is in a small town in Hunan Province. He majored in electrical machinery in his university. When he graduated, he saw work related to his major. Entering the factory seemed to be a "natural thing" for him. And he has no fixed urban intention. He will go wherever the factory is: Fujian, Guangzhou, Hubei In his words, "It doesn't matter where you go if you are single and live in a factory."
In the past, the outside world shaped the manufacturing industry into a simple "Foxconn style" symbol, with workshops, assembly lines, factory boys, factory girls, rigid working atmosphere and cramped and messy dormitory. In the traditional concept of parents, working in the factory is even "unpromising".
With the contraction of the Internet, real estate construction and education and training, the three industries with the greatest job demand, manufacturing has become a new migration area for young people. In this year's recruitment market, BYD has become a hot search with the popularity of "school recruitment receives 120000 resumes a day".
China's manufacturing industry is no longer the most basic group of processing factories in the industrial production system. A large number of labor-intensive enterprises that once spread throughout China are gradually seeking transformation. Accordingly, the technical talents in the new manufacturing industry are no longer ordinary blue collar workers as we know them.
The data of MyCOS Research Institute's 2023 college student employment blue book also shows that the employment proportion of undergraduate graduates in the manufacturing industry in 2022 will reach 22.2%, and the proportion of vocational graduates will reach 25.0%, respectively 4.2 and 3.9 percentage points higher than that in 2018. Among them, the electronic and electrical equipment manufacturing industry is the industry that attracts the 2022 college graduates with the most jobs.
Young people are no longer excluded from the factory, and the new manufacturing factory is no longer the same.
Pang Wei felt that the most obvious thing was the accommodation conditions. The factories he stayed in were basically equipped with air conditioners, washing machines, water heaters and wireless networks, "all of which are necessary".
Although Pang Wei's current factory is a new one and the early construction is not perfect, the conditions in the factory are not bad. As far as accommodation conditions are concerned, Pang Wei used to live in a dormitory with two or four people. It is inevitable that there will be conflicts of living habits in a dormitory with many people.
Pang Wei was also bothered by his roommate's snoring. Although he was still an ordinary engineer here, he could already live in a single room, which was one of the factors that attracted him to accept the offer at that time. "After all, the living conditions of the post-90s and post-00s generation are better, and the requirements for some living conditions of the factory have also been improved, so the factory will also make some changes in this regard."
However, the factory is generally located in the suburb. Pang Wei's factory is located in the suburb of Yichang, about 20 kilometers away from the urban area. In fact, Pang Wei's distance from the city is not important. "Take a day off every week. After 12 hours of work, I just want to sleep even if I have a rest."
This is also the unattractive part of factory life: monotony. Basically, factories work in two 12 hour shifts, 996 or 886. On the other hand, Pang Wei comforted himself by saying that food and shelter don't cost much and that he "can save money".
At the end of the conversation, I asked Pang Wei a question with "inertial thinking": Do you have any work plans in the future? Pang Wei's answer is simple and direct - take one step at a time.
I thought that he was unwilling to tell me the true idea, so he was perfunctory. But when I reviewed the conversation, I understood the meaning of this answer. Plans for the future need to have control over reality, and in a world full of changes, "plans" are often ineffective.
However, this does not mean that Pang Wei's people are in a helpless state of their own life, but the direction of life is full of variables and uncertainties. Long term planning is often a futile investment, and what they need more is a coping ability of "taking one step at a time".
Perhaps, as Pang Wei said when he mentioned the choice of offer in the communication process, "As long as the treatment is better and the base salary is higher, whether there is an order or not has nothing to do with me. Whether there is an order or overtime has little impact on the salary. If there is no order, I will jump to another company."
This may be the current situation of ordinary young people looking for jobs, but is it another kind of "down to earth"?
This group of young people who work in factories seems to be Buddha, but they still have their own pursuit, which is totally different from the factory work of their parents.
(This article launches the titanium media app, the author | Han Jingxian, the editor | Zhang Minwen said Pang Wei was a pseudonym)
