Yesterday, I came across a viral article about a university lecturer nearing fifty years old who still goes to the front line to deliver takeout food. Based on his experience, he wrote an article that has been widely circulated online. I really admire him, as there are very few people like him now, and it can be inferred why he has always been a lecturer - he is too honest, and being too honest makes it difficult to get ahead anywhere.

I was inspired to talk about a few things he mentioned in his article.

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First, he said that on average, an hourly income of 10 yuan is the norm, and an hourly income of 20 yuan is the limit. This is actually the "30 yuan salary line" I mentioned in my previous article.

The wages of hundreds of millions of factory workers in our country are about less than 30 yuan per hour. In fact, 30 yuan is the limit, and this year it has been fluctuating around 22 yuan overall. If it goes up to 25 yuan, a large number of people will return to factories from the courier industry, quickly suppressing wages. If it's too low, it will drive people from factories to the courier industry, lowering the labor unit price there.

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I just contacted the labor service in Suzhou, and they are recruiting workers with a salary of 20-22 yuan per hour, without five insurances and one fund, and the age cannot exceed 40. He also told me that those who claim to be more than 35 yuan per hour are lying, and unscrupulous intermediaries deceive young people who have just started to work.

That is to say, if you don't have any special skills and only have physical strength, when you go to the job market, no matter what kind of work you do, the final income is almost capped, usually a little more than 20 yuan. This is because there is too much idle labor, which pushes the income to be leveled.

Every year, like the tide, when the factory business is busy and wages are high, everyone goes to the factory; when the factory business is scarce, overtime is not allowed, or even production is stopped, everyone goes to deliver couriers and takeout. Everyone should pay attention, everyone has to work overtime, whether it is a factory or courier, if you don't work for at least twelve hours a day, you can't earn much money in a month. This point is quite different between factory workers and white-collar workers, white-collar workers hate overtime, and workers basically can't do it without overtime.

Now, factories, couriers, takeout, and ride-hailing have become a huge sponge that can absorb various idle labor. Now, when people advise those college students and unemployed white-collar workers to take off their long robes, it usually implies that they go to these industries. To be honest, if I were a college student, even if I couldn't find a job, I would never do this kind of work for more than three months.

Generally speaking, the unemployment rate of young people is higher than that of middle-aged people. After all, after graduating from college, if you can't find a job, you would rather take the postgraduate or civil servant exam for a few years than deliver takeout. But middle-aged people are different, they can't stop for a day, there is always one of the above that is suitable for middle-aged people, anyway, it's not suitable for you, you have to go, car loans, mortgages, the elderly and children all need money, how can you be idle at home?Moreover, many people may not be aware that takeout delivery, courier services, and courier sorting sound similar, but they actually represent three different levels of work. Takeout delivery is quite challenging; one must know how to ride a motorcycle, have good physical strength, and be able to climb stairs. It's normal for a takeout delivery person to walk or run 20,000 to 30,000 steps a day, which is why their income is the highest.

Courier services are relatively easier. As everyone can see, takeout delivery people are usually running, while couriers are more leisurely, pulling a cart and delivering packages slowly.

Sorting is the simplest and the lowest paid. I specifically contacted a sorting contractor in Majuqiao, Beijing, and he told me that the real-time wage rate on September 4th was 18 yuan per hour. There are many girls because they can't do takeout delivery. They are basically casual workers, recruited online every day. Over a hundred people come every morning, some of whom are clumsy and can't do the job, and are scolded away by the foreman. Most of the remaining people don't come back the next day, and they have to be recruited again.

Don't think 18 yuan is too little. Beijing is basically the ceiling for the entire northern region. There are also group rental houses around Beijing, where a room is equipped with several bunk beds, and you can rent a bed. I just asked a house, and the price is also floating. Today's price is 20 yuan, and 600 yuan a month. However, their workplaces often change, so their places of residence also change frequently. There is also a People's Square in Tongzhou, where the price is 10 yuan a night, but the conditions are much worse. Of course, the price will be higher in winter in the north because it's too cold. In winter, many people can't stand it and go south, and the labor shortage in Beijing will push up the unit price. Let's put a picture of Majuqiao:

By the way, female physical laborers are really very difficult. For example, in the cleaning industry, which absorbs the most employment in big cities, even in the first line, more than half of the people don't earn more than 3,000 yuan, which is really unbearable to watch.

The article also mentioned one thing, saying that since a certain group went public, it has been losing money, businesses are closing down in batches, and couriers are also suffering. Who exactly made the money?

In fact, if you look at any financial report, you can see that a certain group is making money in the takeout business. The areas where they lose money are mainly new businesses, such as research and development, which have been particularly expensive in recent years. This has made many people not understand, a company that does takeout delivery, what do they usually research and develop?In fact, what is being developed is not important; what matters is the development itself.

Suddenly, I remembered something. Everyone knows that story from a while ago, right? The father worked hard delivering takeout to raise his child, and then the child also started delivering takeout with his father.

The tragedy of this story lies in the metaphor that if a society lacks high-end research and development positions, then after graduating from university, the knowledge you learned in college is useless, and no one will hire you. With the knowledge learned being of no use, and unable to find corresponding jobs, you have to resort to delivering takeout. This kind of thing is already happening on a large scale.

Why am I talking about this? Those large internet companies mess around with some expansion projects, recruiting a bunch of people every year and then spending all the money, with only a part of the projects making a profit, and most of the projects eventually proving to be unfeasible and being abandoned.

It may seem ridiculous, but objectively, it does absorb a lot of college graduates every year. If internet companies stop investing in these non-mainstream projects, it seems like they save money, but the problem is that the positions for college graduates are also saved. The employment pressure on college students in recent years is well known, and everyone should know that the ten million college graduates who graduated this year have not yet been absorbed, and the college students who will graduate next year will also start looking for jobs when they return to university on September 1st.

So, if internet companies stop research and development, the few high-paying jobs that are currently available will be gone.

As for the closure of restaurants and other businesses, a common sense is that no matter with or without the internet, on a street, only 10% of the shops can survive after three years.

This is not about the internet persecuting the physical stores; it is the iron law of the market. Those shops are not competing with the internet; they are competing with their peers. Moreover, everyone knows that the catering industry is extremely fierce, with low barriers to entry. After all, when people think of starting a business, the first reaction is "open a restaurant," and the next reaction is "coffee shop." In this case, vicious competition is not a matter of pushing each other to the brink?

In fact, the two types of businesses that fail the most are ranked first and second, respectively, are restaurants and coffee shops. Today, I also saw a piece of data that a restaurant was renovated for 800,000 yuan, but when it was resold, it could only be sold for 4,500 yuan.

The lecturer said that the income of delivery personnel in Japan and the United States is quite good, several times that of China. I always feel that the main reason is that there are fewer people there, especially a lack of enough Chinese people.On TikTok, there is a Chinese person delivering food in the United States. Other delivery workers earn three to four thousand a month, but he earns nearly ten thousand every month. Why is that? He used to be a delivery person in China and brought his experience to the United States. He works tirelessly, delivering for more than ten hours a day. While other delivery workers go home to eat, sleep, and hang out in bars after work, he is still delivering.

American food delivery platforms do not allow such long hours, fearing fatigue driving. When the time is up, they no longer give orders. He registered two accounts and was proud of his intelligence, saying that Americans are too straightforward and do not have facial recognition. However, he also said that even if there were facial recognition, he would register under two food delivery platforms.

Let's think about it. If there were tens of millions of people like him in the United States, do you believe that the entire delivery industry would be driven down to the minimum wage line?

In that article, there is a paragraph that looks like a scene from a Jia Zhangke movie:

I asked him (other delivery workers) if it's more bitter than farming back home? He said, of course, it's more bitter than farming. Farming is leisurely, but it doesn't make money, so what's the point of farming? I asked him if it's more bitter than construction work? He said, of course, it's more bitter than construction work. In construction work, a skilled worker earns 200 yuan a day, and an unskilled worker earns 180 to 200 yuan a day; but can you get the money? There's work for half a year and no work for the other half. By the end of the year, the foreman runs away, and the New Year, what New Year? I'm going to try all these jobs. I'll do each one for a few months. It's time to slim down my heart that is full of vanity.

I have to say, seeing this paragraph is really touching. Chinese intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals, including self-media writers, rarely care about what the grassroots people are busy with.

And I don't know if you've noticed, the disconnection between too many people and the grassroots is becoming more and more obvious. Most people don't know what the lives and work of the grassroots people who make up the vast majority of our country's population are like. So occasionally, an article like this can cause a huge shock.

There was a saying before that there are no ordinary people in our TV dramas anymore. Occasionally, there are, but it's so far-fetched that you feel the screenwriter's brain has been kicked by a donkey, such as a college graduate just renting a big flat in the first line, squeezing the subway yesterday, and buying a 300,000 yuan car today, and the bottom line of office workers is also like Wang Manni, a luxury store saleswoman.I'm not really complaining about this reality, but it is true that more attention should be given. Attention itself is power, which can then promote the arrangement of some basic protections for those delivery and construction workers, such as insurance and the like.

4. Epilogue

To be honest, many problems cannot be solved for the time being, especially the issue of increasing the income of hundreds of millions of people.

For example, the treatment of delivery and takeaway workers as well as factory workers is closely linked to consumption. If consumption weakens, these conditions will not improve. Even technological progress may temporarily improve the situation of those practitioners, but it will take a long time to spread to the entire society. It is estimated that it will take many years for the hundreds of millions of grassroots people to break through the wage line of 30 yuan per hour. Many people sympathize with delivery and takeaway workers, but in fact, their income is already considered high.

However, there is no other way, life must go on. If there are suggestions, I still hope that the country can promote social transparency, reduce the number of profiteering classes, give some benefits to the grassroots, and gradually increase the income of the grassroots.