原创首发 | 金角财经（ID: F-Jinjiao)
Author | Yingbao
There is a strange scene in the Chinese automotive industry:
While ridiculing the joint venture car companies for losing and retreating, they are envious of the joint venture car companies' generous layoff compensation.
The latest case is Dongfeng Honda. Recently, Dongfeng Honda issued a layoff notice, planning to lay off nearly 2,000 people. Unexpectedly, the "N+2+1" severance compensation triggered "employees rushing to be laid off", and the number of applicants has reached 2,500.
Prior to this, Guangqi Honda's layoffs also triggered the phenomenon of "employees rushing to be laid off". It provides "N+2+1.8" compensation packages for departing employees, which is "more than Tesla (N+3)". On social networks, complaints from laid-off employees are hardly found.
In stark contrast, China's new car-making forces have a "decisive and decisive" attitude towards employees. Recently, a copy of Cialis's "520" plan has been circulated on the Internet, showing that employees who have reached the age of 50 or 20 years old will reach one of them, that is, everything will be reset to zero, and the two-way choice will be made again.
Not only Cialis, under the tide of price war, the new forces are desperately trying to create cheaper and lower cars in exchange for higher and higher sales, but it has also led to more and more unfair treatment of employees.
This kind of sacrifice in exchange for far ahead, when comparing the generous compensation for the laid off employees of the joint venture car company, people always feel that something is wrong, but they can't say it, or even can't say it.
"Gleefully made redundant"
"No one showed grief or protest." A former employee of Dongfeng Honda described the layoff site as such.
On the contrary, everyone said goodbye to the company with a positive attitude, and some departments even held a farewell party, from buying snacks to setting up a party, all of which were done by the employees themselves.
The reason is very simple, the company's performance is not good, but it is very kind to the employees who leave.
According to a number of media reports, Dongfeng Honda provided nearly 2,000 resignation places this time, and at the same time gave "N+2+1" compensation (N refers to working years, 2 refers to two months' salary, and 1 refers to an extra month bonus).
Dongfeng Honda has been building factories in China for more than 20 years, and according to the compensation plan given by Dongfeng Honda, veteran employees with more than 10 years of service may receive compensation of up to 200,000 yuan.
According to the report of "Everyone Auto", there are currently employees with 20 years of service who have received nearly 500,000 yuan in compensation. Even front-line workshop employees with low average salaries can get 90,000 yuan for 6 years and 100,000 yuan for 7 years.
Under this stimulus, Dongfeng Honda's network layoff channel collapsed as soon as it opened, and the number of people who signed up for layoffs quickly reached 2,500.
"Employees rushed to be laid off", this scene has been staged by Guangqi Honda three months ago.
In May this year, according to media insiders citing insiders, Guangqi Honda will provide a compensation plan of "N+2+1.8" for departing employees, "N+2 is the standard compensation, and 1.8 months may be a bonus", involving 1,700 employees.
In the words of an internal employee, "more compensation than Tesla (N+3)." What is even more surprising is that although the layoffs are currently mainly involving workers on the production line. But their salaries are not as meager as the outside world thinks.
According to the report, among the regular employees on the front line of production, "some people can have thousands of yuan in the housing provident fund alone a month", and there is no shortage of monthly salaries of 25,000-30,000 yuan, in addition to various subsidies, and the monthly salary of more senior middle-level employees can reach 50,000-60,000 yuan, so many people are taking hundreds of thousands of yuan in compensation.
This practice of "generously giving money" quickly appeared on the hot search on the Internet, and soon there was a joke that "being laid off by other car companies is discouraged, and being laid off by Guangqi Honda is elated".
The talk show joke "Severance compensation is the first pot of gold in life" was only swiped a few days ago, and now it has come into reality, and it is twice. This also makes many front-line employees of independent brand car companies mixed, because in terms of sales, joint venture car companies represented by Honda have been defeated and deeply defeated.
Taking the retail sales in July as an example, Honda only sold more than 10,000 vehicles of the Accord in China in July, while the sales of more than 20,000 yuan in the past, including the Accord, CR-V, and Haoying, were almost invisible. The sales performance of electric vehicles is even more dismal, such as e:NP2, e:NS2, e:NP1, and e:NS1, with retail sales of only 295 units, 209 units, 163 units, and 22 units in July, respectively.
According to the official announcement, Honda's terminal vehicle sales in China in August 2024 will be 56,959 units, a year-on-year plunge of 44.3%, and in the first eight months of this year, Honda's cumulative terminal vehicle sales in China will be 525432 units, a year-on-year decrease of 27.2%.
Honda's big defeat is a fact, but it doesn't affect the favor of laid-off employees, and it's also true.
"It's all about victory"
Also working for 20 years, the employees of Cialis should be the most envious of Honda.
Not long ago, a document stamped with the official seal of "Cialis Group Co., Ltd." was circulated on the Internet, which mentioned that Cialis announced that it would implement the "520" plan:
Employees who have reached the age of 50 or 20 years old will reach one of them, that is, everything will be reset to zero, and the two-way selection will be made again.
The purpose of this plan is to realize the younger state of the talent team in an orderly manner and continue to maintain the activation state of the people's team; All-round orientation charge, all for the sake of fighting, all for victory.
According to the official website of Cialis, it was founded in 1986, 38 years ago, and currently has 16,000 employees, I don't know how many employees are over 20 years old, and I don't know how these employees view the "two-way choice" and how do they view the "younger team"?
According to the financial report of Cialis, the company achieved operating income of 65.04 billion yuan in the first half of this year, a year-on-year increase of 489.58%, and a net profit of 1.625 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 220.85%, both hitting a record high.
Some people also bluntly said that Cialis seems to have only learned Huawei's wolf nature, but not Huawei's generosity to give money. This is still the case with the record high performance of Cialis, not to mention other car companies.
During the layoffs in June this year, Ideal did not pay compensation as agreed, but instead laid off the employees for a month, and recalled some of them, and the contract was directly renewed, and the compensation was no longer provided.
According to the financial report, the operating income in the second quarter was 31.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.6%; Net profit was 1.1 billion yuan, an increase of 86.2% month-on-month and a year-on-year decrease of 52.3%, and the gross profit margin was 19.5%. In terms of cash reserves, as of June 30, 2024, Li Auto's cash reserves are as high as 97.3 billion yuan.
When Xiaopeng laid off employees last year, it was also revealed by netizens who claimed to be dispatched employees: "No matter how long you have been hired, the compensation you get is 1 month's monthly salary, and there is no N." ”
And that's not even the worst of it. Some car companies do not lay off employees, but force employees in disguise by cutting salaries, increasing workload, and extending working hours.
In July this year, Chery was accused of "illegal overtime" by employees online: "Chery stipulates that overtime shall not be less than 100 hours per month, and the overtime hours must be compared between departments, and if the overtime coefficient (load factor) is not reached, it will be reported." At the same time, Chery turned off the clock-in system and clocked in for employees at 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m.
What does 100 hours of overtime per month mean? If calculated as 23 working days in a month, Chery employees work 8 hours of normal work + 4.3 hours of overtime per day, that is, 12.3 hours.
This is only the minimum standard, for example, some employees said that they worked a total of 120 hours of overtime in April this year, plus 174 hours of normal work, a total of nearly 300 hours of working hours, calculated as an hourly wage of only 16 yuan, and Chery does not pay overtime, "only 10 yuan for meals".
For the encroachment of employees' personal rights and interests, many car companies seem to be accustomed to it, and even praise it.
Chery Group's "July Economic Management Committee Meeting" article mentioned: "Truly realize that 3 people do the work of 5 people and get the wages of 4 people", and shouted the slogan of "I can resist if I can't bear it, and I will die if I can't bear it" at the recent mobilization meeting in South China.
In an interview with Global Entrepreneur, a Chery employee also mentioned: "Yin Tongyue advocates faith and likes employees' free dedication. Yin Tongyue is the chairman of Chery Holding Group.
Liu Tao, co-CEO of Zhiji Auto, said at the L6 press conference: "Our classmates will miss even the birth of their own children. "We have classmates who are so ruthless that they send their young children to boarding schools and see each other in a week."
In this regard, some netizens commented: "Every time you buy a Zhiji, there is a newborn who can't see his biological father for the first time." ”
Just imagine, if you are an employee with 20 years of service, are you willing to face a "two-way choice" in Cialis, or are you willing to be laid off by Honda to get "N+3"?
"Far ahead"
Of course, there are also people who say that today's sacrifice is for tomorrow's happiness.
In the past two years, in order to overtake in corners, the new car-making forces have mainly done one thing to the outside world: fighting a price war.
Objectively speaking, the price war is indeed useful, and the "high price and low allocation" that joint venture car companies once had a high toe no longer has a market. With the increasing cost performance of new energy independent brands, the price of 200,000 yuan class cars has been beaten to less than 150,000 yuan, and 300,000 yuan level SUVs have been beaten to less than 200,000 yuan.
Who dares to say that the price war is wrong, that is, it is the enemy of national brands and consumers.
However, the cheap price does not fall from the sky, under the premise of limited technology cost reduction, in order to reduce costs and increase efficiency, the easiest and most simple and crude way for enterprises to think of is to reduce labor costs.
Is it sustainable to squeeze employees in exchange for sales? The answer to this question is self-explanatory. In economics, a person is both a producer and a consumer, and the decrease in the income of employees will eventually reflect changes in consumption.
Countless enterprises choose to "reduce human costs", and the final harm must be the entire domestic consumption environment, and in the end, this part of the cost will also be evenly distributed to each enterprise itself.
The longer-term consequences of the backlash can also be glimpsed from the photovoltaic industry.
In 2007, China became the world's largest producer of photovoltaic modules. This year, China's photovoltaic module production growth rate was as high as 133% in three years, and there have been nearly 1,000 domestic photovoltaic companies, and 11 have gone public in the United States, but the shortcomings of the industry of "mainly relying on assembly" are also obvious, and the raw materials, equipment and product markets are dependent on foreign countries. In other words, this is a business kingdom supported by a demographic dividend.
Forced overtime, salary cuts and other behaviors have also appeared. "New Energy Job Search Service" has visited and investigated more than 50 photovoltaic companies, and compiled a table of overtime levels. Among them, 2 companies work more than 100 hours of overtime per month, 5 companies work between 70-100 hours per month, and 8 companies work between 40-70 hours per month.
The result is a massive layoff and a large surplus. According to the incomplete statistics of "grassroots photovoltaic", there are more than a dozen domestic manufacturers that have been exposed to layoffs, including first-tier leading manufacturers, as well as second- and third-tier manufacturers, and it is conservatively estimated that tens of thousands of workers are unemployed; China's PV capacity is twice as much as all global demand, and a large number of PV companies have had to stop production or even go bankrupt.
Stories like this are also being played out in the lithium battery industry. And then to today's new energy vehicles, if the rights and interests of employees in exchange for the far ahead, the final result is that the overcapacity enterprise bankrupt employees unemployed, then what is the significance of this far ahead?
On September 23, the China Automobile Dealers Association issued a document on the official account today saying that from January to August this year, the "price war" has caused a cumulative loss of 138 billion yuan in the overall retail sales of the new car market, and appealed to the government departments and submitted an emergency report.
On September 25, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued opinions on implementing the employment priority strategy to promote high-quality and full employment, proposing to "promote the reasonable growth of labor remuneration", "strengthen macro guidance on the distribution of wages and income of enterprises", and "promote enterprises to protect the legitimate rights and interests of workers in accordance with the law, such as labor remuneration, rest and vacation, and labor safety and health protection".
The wind direction is changing, and industrial development should no longer take the old road of sacrificing the "small self" to achieve the "big self".
Resources:
Everyone's Auto "Rushing to be laid off Dongfeng Honda people"
Everyone's Auto "Rushing to be laid off Guangqi Honda people"
Shangguan News "Dongfeng Honda is rumored to be a staff snatching layoffs, are Japanese cars "left behind"? 》
Interesting business "Chery overtime, ideal layoffs, car companies involution suffers from "beating workers"? 》
Tang Chen's "Chery is forced to work overtime, and Huawei is used as a shield?" 》