Chill of recession in job market
Global financial crisis brings recession both in economy and job market. With the uncertainty of economic slowdown, many workers maintain that nothing can be more important than securing jobs.
As numerous companies are slashing salaries and headcounts, it is reported that more employees are becoming cautious with job-hopping and looking for good advices.
A lot of employees feel the current situation could worsen soon.
Jackie Zhang, 35, who works at the export department of a US-based logistics company, said that her company has started with the job cuts because the volume of their airfreight had halved from last year’s and she worried about her future very much.
Her company has more than 50 branches worldwide and nearly 1,000 employees in China.
Some of other foreign companies in China, such as Belgium company and Danish company, choose to fire employees or have no pay raises this year.
Irene Wang, 33, after having been laid off from Wal-Mart last year, was finally offered a post as a senior purchasing manager at a European garment company in early November. But half a month later, the company told her they have not decided to hire her.
She’s still trying her best to find a job in near future but it seems that all her effort was in vain.
According to Shi Jianfei, the general manager of human resources portal 01job.com, Shanghai’s job market has been shrunken theatrically since October, because companies have simply stopped hiring. Fewer companies that hire employees but more job seekers appear at the job fairs.
Many corporate clients send inquiries to law firm asking questions about firing employees or cutting down wages.
Wu Dong, a lawyer with M&A law firm said that there are more inquiries than that of previous years.
Wu added that layoffs have spread to senior staff. “A company wanted to fire a country manager with an annual salary of more than 800,000 yuan ($117,000),” he said.
The Shanghai No 1 Intermediate People’s Court is also hearing more labour dispute cases, according to court figures. Since July, the court has accepted 1,759 labor disputes, a 41.6 percent increase from that of last year. Of these, 20 percent involve group litigation.
The work unions that exist in almost all foreign-own companies in Shanghai will try to protect the benefits of employees if layoffs happen, said union worker Zhu Jia.
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The US and China are interconnected with this recession, and so many people need solutions.
Having said that, since we’re also talking about being more creative during this economic slump, why not think outside the box of looking to work for another in the first place?
I’m rather amazed that there are plenty of skill sets that are for whatever reason not “conventional” enough to be taught in schools, but the mastery of which would lead to more autonomy.
Most of us are trained to be employees- nothing wrong with that, but I’m convinced that thinking that way is a kind of tunnel vision that keeps many from learning skills that would allow them to carve out there own path to income.
One of them is as close as the computer in front of you. For the first time in history, we are 3 feet in front of the world, yet few learn how to use it in a way to render 1) value to others and 2)income for themselves.
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