China has its own Gen-Z moment, many people in the range of 20-30 years refuse to do grindy work for long in factories for low wages, to work 996 - from 9 am to 9 pm on 6 days a week - and want better working conditions.
Growing up in a Chinese village, Julian Zhu only saw his father a few times a year when he returned for holidays from his exhausting job in a textile mill in southern Guangdong province.
For his father's generation, factory work was a lifeline out of rural poverty. For Zhu, and millions of other younger Chinese, the low pay, long hours of drudgery and the risk of injuries are no longer sacrifices worth making.
"After a while that work makes your mind numb," said the 32-year-old, who quit the production lines some years ago and now makes a living selling milk formula and doing scooter deliveries for a supermarket in Shenzhen, China's southern tech hub. "I couldn't stand the repetition."
The rejection of grinding factory work by Zhu and other Chinese in their 20s and 30s is contributing to a deepening labour shortage that is frustrating manufacturers in China, which produces a third of the goods consumed globally.
Factory bosses say they would produce more, and faster, with younger blood replacing their ageing workforce. But offering the higher wages and better working conditions that younger Chinese want would risk eroding their competitive advantage.
And smaller manufacturers say large investments in automation technology are either unaffordable or imprudent when rising inflation and borrowing costs are curbing demand in China's key export markets.
The low pay, long hours of drudgery and risk of injury are no longer sacrifices worth making for China's younger generation.
www.reuters.com
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