Two days ago, a piece of news about “Apparel Giant Raise Employees’ Salaries” hit Weibo’s hot search!
2023 has just begun, but the voice of “salary increase” has already been heard endlessly. Many Southeast Asian countries have collectively announced salary increases, and now the Japanese clothing giant Uniqlo has followed suit and decided to increase salaries…
Starting in Southeast Asia, the trend of salary increases is gradually gaining momentum
According to past practice, Southeast Asian countries review monthly basic wages or minimum wages every year or every two years. As the epidemic gradually eases, Southeast Asian countries are gradually increasing wages.
In Cambodia, the government announced that starting from January 1, the monthly minimum wage for workers in the footwear, clothing and travel goods industry will increase from US$194 in 2022 to US$200, an increase of 3.09%.
In Indonesia, the monthly basic salary in 2023 will be increased by 1.93% to more than 7%.
…
However, it is not just countries in Southeast Asia that have decided to raise salaries this year. According to Japanese media reports on January 11, Uniqlo clothing brand operator Fast Retailing issued a statement saying that it will increase the salary of full-time employees in Japan from March, with an increase of about 40%. %, the program covers approximately 8,400 people. The starting salary will increase from the current 255,000 yen to 300,000 yen (approximately RMB 15,380). The starting salary for new store managers will rise from 290,000 yen to 390,000 yen.
In fact, as early as September last year, UNIQLO had already increased the average hourly wage of temporary workers in Japan by about 20%, and this wave of “wage increases” in 2023 will obviously have a wider scope and greater impact! According to reports, Fast Retailing will raise the overall salary level in Japan to be in line with international standards, thereby attracting external talents and preventing brain drain. Through this adjustment, Fast Retailing may not only increase monthly salary, but also bonuses.
However, this salary increase may be just the beginning. How to digest the labor cost pressure brought by salary increases and maximize corporate profitability will become an urgent problem for many manufacturing companies.
Under the “salary increase”, labor costs continue to rise
In recent years, “difficulty in recruiting workers” has been plaguing textile and garment enterprises. In order to alleviate the “labor shortage”, the most common method used by enterprises is to increase wages, which directly leads to the continuous increase in enterprise labor costs. This goes back and forth, and enterprise development falls into a vicious cycle.
In order to cope with “expensive labor”, many textile and garment companies have turned their attention to areas with relatively low labor costs. For example, Tianhong Textile, the world leader in the elastic core-spun yarn market, invested and built a factory in Vietnam as early as 2006. In December 2021, in order to expand production capacity, it spent 228 million to lease the right to use a land in Vietnam for 43 years. Due to favorable factors such as convenient import of raw materials, low labor costs and preferential local tax policies, Texhong’s Vietnam factory has more substantial profits than domestic factories.
Of course, in addition to Southeast Asia, my country’s central and western regions have also become destinations for industrial transfer. However, those that move to the Midwest tend to be relatively small-scale enterprises that are geared toward the domestic market.
“Industrial transfer” is a good way out, but there are also many constraints. Therefore, many companies choose to stay, transform and upgrade on-site, and embark on the “breakout” road to high-end and high value-added development. They either innovate in product operation and design, establish their own brands, and occupy high value-added markets; or they use intelligent software and high-end equipment to make the production process more informatized and automated, making the production line run more efficiently. .
Taken together, it is a foregone conclusion that “labor shortage” has been accompanied by the development of labor-intensive industries for a long time, and “salary benefits” are the first factor that attracts job seekers. Textile companies with huge employment needs need to explore an effective recruitment plan if they want to solve the “difficulty in recruiting” problem. “Increasing salary” may not be the only way.
</p
