The Midwest Shoe Industry Is Pressing Ahead With Dongguan Shoe Makers.

Facing the central and Western Regions

Recently, Dongguan shoe maker Guo Jianwen (a pseudonym) went to Chengdu and Chongqing, known as the "western shoes capital," and he was surprised to find many local cities in the two cities.

"The monthly salary of the general worker is 2200 yuan, a week can enjoy two days of vacation, overtime pay another calculation, more than 6 yuan per hour.

I was shocked when I saw the recruitment conditions of Chengdu and Chongqing. I realized that the recruitment situation might be more severe this year. After returning to Dongguan, I hurried to readjust the expenditure plan for employment expenses.

Guo Jianwen said in an interview with reporters on the 18 th.

Before the Spring Festival holiday, Guo Jianwen has raised the processing cost of each pair of shoes by 3 yuan in order to retain the workers.

But he realized that after the workers' salary levels in western footwear companies kept up, they had to raise the processing fees again.

"After two adjustments this year, 10 yuan per worker is paid for each pair of shoes, and the annual labor cost is estimated to increase by around 20 million yuan. We have added the cost to the new order, and the average price of each pair of export shoes is 10 yuan.

If customers can not accept, we can only part of the order, anyway, the current shortage of work is relatively serious, no rush to take orders and scale expansion.

Guo Jianwen told reporters that the average monthly salary of the shoe workers is mostly between 2000~3000 yuan, and the monthly salary of some skilled workers is even higher. The number of workers returning to the factory now has more than 1600 people, and there are still 600 people in the gap. This is pretty good in Dongguan's Houjie shoemaking enterprise.

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Dongguan is China's most important export base for shoes products, while Dongguan shoe factories are densely distributed in Houjie town.

After the Spring Festival this year, Houjie Town's first large-scale shoe industry talent recruitment meeting attracted nearly 200 shoe industry enterprises to recruit, and there were tens of thousands of vacancies.

Not only did the Pearl River Delta footwear enterprises come to Henan, Sichuan and other places, some shoe companies also came to "grab people".

This reporter learned that the most attractive eye for shoes workers is still pay.

The workers who came to apply for the job were asked the most about their wages, followed by overtime work, and the food conditions of the factories.

Abe (alias) from Chongqing went to Guangdong to work in 1995. She had spent many months in electronics, shoes and other industries. Her monthly salary rose from three hundred or four hundred yuan in 1995 to 2700 yuan to 2800 yuan, and she could get 3000 yuan in a long time.

She told the newspaper reporter, now in Dongguan to work, mainly wages here are still slightly higher than in Chongqing, Jiangxi and other places, if the wages of the old home and Guangdong almost the same, will still consider going home, so that they can work side by side, while taking care of the children at home.

Factories need to stabilize workers and raise wages, but it also brings rise to manufacturing costs. Overseas buyers may shift their orders to other places, especially the manufacture of mass footwear, which is very sensitive to cost. The world shoe production base has been shifting from the last century 60s to the first place from North America to China and South America, and from Europe to Japan, then pferred to South Korea and Taiwan, China. In the 80s of last century, it moved to the southeast coast of mainland China. After twenty-first Century, new low-cost countries such as Vietnam, Chao, India, Bangladesh, Kampuchea and Burma also joined the footwear industry.

Li Qingke, the former general manager of Fengtai footwear industry in Taiwan and the master of technology and management in Taiwan footwear industry, told an interview with our reporter that Nike and other international buyers are strictly controlling costs. Now many brands of sports shoes in the US market are priced below $100, and the retail price of the sub shoe terminals does not rise or fall compared with the previous years, so the unit price of the foundry shoe enterprises will not be substantially improved, which will lead to the shift of the OEM shoe companies to the areas with lower labor costs.

"Foundry shoes enterprises will not go to long-term planning and development. Due to the rising cost, there are few shoe factories in Taiwan now, and some Taiwanese shoe factories that have been pferred to Dongguan have been pferred to Jiangxi, Chengdu, Vietnam, Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries and regions. The shoe factories that moved to these places earlier can save some costs, and the shoe factories that are late shifting are also faced with a dilemma."

Li Qingke said.

At present, the wages of shoemaking workers in the Midwest are also rising, making Guo Jianwen more steadfast in the idea of remaining in Dongguan's pformation and upgrading.

Over the past few years, he has shifted from large-scale production to small batch and diversified modes, and continuously increased the added value of products by strengthening design and other means, and shifted from foundry to self created brand. The export price of a pair of shoes rose from $seven or eight before to $twenty or thirty.

However, even so, it is still difficult to digest the cost pressure.

Last year, Guo Jianwen's wages to workers rose by about 40%, but because of the conversion mode of production mode and the reduction of workers' efficiency, the output decreased from nearly 2 million pairs per year to 1 million 500 thousand pairs, and some goods could not be delivered on time, resulting in a total loss of about 10000000 yuan a year.

In addition, he encountered many other problems.

For example, in the previous mass production, it was 1000 meters to the upstream supplier, and now a few meters, many materials firms are not willing to supply.

"Some shoe factories shift to the central and western parts of the country, do not rule out the possibility of enclosure in the mainland, while building factories while developing real estate.

For enterprises who really engage in manufacturing industry, there is still room for upgrading in Dongguan.

The unit price of exported shoes produced in Dongguan is generally higher than that in the Midwest. At present, the cost of labor in the Midwest is much higher than that in the Pearl River Delta in Dongguan, but in terms of product quality and delivery date, it is generally not as good as the shoe factories in Dongguan. The pressure is no less than that of the Pearl River Delta. Some traders who turn to the western market are now turning their orders back to the Pearl River Delta.

Guo Jianwen said that labor costs will be reduced by strengthening management and expanding domestic brands.