They used to work for China’s biggest companies, but now they’re doing manual labour

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Long hours and shrinking resources have prompted employees to rethink trading their time and health for higher pay.

ST PHOTO: AW CHENG WEI

 

HONG KONG — Ms Leon Li used to play a discreet but indispensable part at one of China’s biggest tech giants.

 

As an administrative officer, she worked round the clock to schedule meetings, prepare documents and provide her bosses with whatever support they needed.

 

But in February, she quit the company, forgoing a stable career and comfortable salary for something a little less stressful – cleaning homes.

 

“Every morning when the alarm rang, all I could see was my dull future,” she told CNN, reflecting on her office job.

 

Ms Li, 27, is part of a growing base of Chinese workers swopping high-pressure office jobs for flexible blue-collar work.

 

Many of them used to work for some of the biggest companies in the country.

 

But these firms are slowly losing their appeal as China’s economy faces headwinds including a property crisis, declining foreign investment and slumping consumption.

 

China’s economy grew 4.7 per cent year on year in the second quarter of 2024, missing economists’ expectations and marking the weakest growth since the first quarter of 2023, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on July 15.

 

Gruellingly long hours and shrinking resources have prompted employees like Ms Li to rethink whether it is worth trading their time and health for higher pay.

 

“I like cleaning up. As living standards improve (across the country), the demand for housekeeping services is also surging with an ever-expanding market,” said Ms Li, who lives in the central Chinese metropolis of Wuhan.

 

But more importantly, she feels happier.

 

“The change it brings is that my head no longer feels dizzy. I feel less mental pressure. And I am full of energy every day,” she said.

 

Ms Leon Li lives in Wuhan, where she recently gave up her job at a major tech company to join the cleaning industry.

PHOTO: COURTESY OF LEON LI

 

Workers reject “996” culture

 

Ms Li is not the only white-collar worker who has found a better work-life balance by trading an office job for manual labour.

 

Ms Alice Wang, 30, who is using an alias for privacy reasons, used to work for one of China’s leading live-streaming e-commerce platforms, earning 700,000 yuan (S$129,500) per year.

 

But she resigned in April, moving from Hangzhou, a picturesque tech hub, to the more laidback city of Chengdu, where rent is cheaper, to take up pet grooming.

 

China’s notorious “996” work culture – the practice of working from 9am to 9pm six days a week that is common among the country’s tech companies, start-ups and other private businesses – has been a push factor for many employees who call it quits.

 

Ms Wang recalled feeling physically frail and “very lifeless and stagnant” at her old job, when she used to dedicate most of her time to work.

 

But she feels different now.

 

“The feeling of growth is relatively good,” she said, adding that she is undertaking grooming training and has ambitions to one day open her own store. “That’s the longer-term plan,” she said.

 

The trend to move from professional to manual jobs comes amid surging demand for blue-collar workers, according to Chinese recruitment platform Zhaopin.

 

In its latest survey released in June, the platform found that demand for blue-collar jobs – such as food delivery workers, truck drivers, waiters and technicians – had surged 3.8 times in the first quarter of 2024 compared with the same period in 2019.

 

Demand for delivery workers grew the fastest, by 800 per cent, after three years of Covid-19-related lockdowns that gave rise to a takeout food culture.

 

And blue-collar workers’ pay has also gone up, attracting more people to jobs they might have previously avoided.

 

The explosion of online shopping has seen the average monthly salary for a delivery worker surge 45.3 per cent since 2019, from 5,581 yuan to 8,109 yuan, according to the survey.

 

For some college graduates though, taking a manual job was not their first choice.

 

As the economy slows, positions for fresh grads have become harder to come by in an increasingly competitive corporate job market.

The survey also found that the number of people under the age of 25 who applied for blue-collar jobs in the first quarter of 2024 surged 165 per cent compared with the same period in 2019.

 

China’s unemployment rate for 16-to-24-year-olds reached a staggering 21.3 per cent in June 2023, according to the NBS, which subsequently suspended the release of the figure for months while it adjusted its methodology.

 

The authorities brought back the data in January 2024 – excluding from the figure some 62 million students, whose main task, they said, should be to study rather than look for jobs.

 

In recent months, the jobless rate for prospective workers aged 16 to 24 has hovered between 14.2 per cent and 15.3 per cent, according to the NBS.

 

Economists Larry Hu and Zhang Yuxiao from Macquarie wrote in a research report in 2023 that China’s services sector, private companies and small and medium-sized enterprises used to be the major sources of employment for young workers. However, they have been hit hard by sluggish consumer demand.

 

Professor David Goodman, director of the University of Sydney’s China Studies Centre, said there had been a mismatch between the kind of graduates that universities churn out and what the market really needs.

 

He said China’s economy was shifting towards advanced technology, green tech and service industries, while university education still largely focuses on manufacturing and public service, areas that are outdated or saturated.

 

“(There is) a key problem if the higher-education system has not adjusted itself or been adjusted to meet rapid changes in the structure of the economy,” he explained.

 

Wuhan is a major commercial city and the capital of the central Chinese province of Hubei.

PHOTO: COURTESY OF LEON LI

 

Pressure of another kind

 

But some wonder if blue-collar work is truly the stress-free refuge people like Ms Li and Ms Wang imagine it to be.

 

A recent video circulated widely on Chinese social media demonstrated how things could go wrong. The clip showed a barista in Shanghai losing his temper over a customer who threatened to make a complaint against him.

 

In a fit of rage, he threw coffee powder at her, instantly becoming the centre of a cafe drama that sparked an online debate about the challenges that workers in the service industry face.

 

Complaints or bad online reviews can prove disastrous for shops and restaurants in China, as many consumers religiously follow recommendations on popular social media platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin, China’s version of TikTok.

 

The threat of a bad review puts pressure on low-paid workers to avoid doing anything that may draw negative attention to the company.

Some internet users denounced the barista’s poor manner. But many more sympathised with him.

 

“The pay is low to begin with, let alone having to face complaint. May as well just quit (when you are) squeezed both by the company and customers,” one online commenter wrote.

 

But for Ms Li, who works just six hours a day cleaning houses on a freelance basis, her experience has been positive.

 

She enjoys bonding with her clients and says each cleaning session makes her work feel like more than just a business transaction.

 

“Customers will carefully pour water for us to drink. When it is time to eat, they will order takeout for us, bring us food, and constantly remind us to drink water and rest,” she said.

 

So far, she said she has no regrets about quitting her office job.

 

“After a tiring day, I can go home and eat and do what I like without any extra mental pressure,” she said. CNN

 

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