The peak recruitment season of March and April is gradually coming to an end. Looking back at recent periods, this year's cross-border employment market has shown clear signs of cooling compared with previous years. Amid a surge in resignations and layoffs, job demand and salary levels have shrunk.
Looking at the bleak job market, the job-hunting pressure of cross-border people has increased exponentially. It is difficult to receive an olive branch from a company, and it is even more difficult to "get along" with the intended company. Not only that, the recruitment environment full of traps and big traps inside small traps has been criticized by many cross-border people. Recruitment status: good companies are all the same, but bad companies have their own merits The annual bucket-picking season is here, but when opening major recruitment software, many sellers can't help but sigh: After taking a look, it feels like the same companies that were scams last year? A seller with five years of experience in fine peddling shared his bumpy job search experience. He interviewed more than a dozen jobs in July last year and got the green light all the way, but all of them were empty promises, and the actual salary and benefits were far from his ideal. “I don’t know if it’s because of my bad luck or the market situation in the past two years, but even after careful selection, the companies I interviewed were basically all scams.” The seller complained helplessly. ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan Opening various job-hunting avoidance websites, you will find that many cross-border companies have a long and storied history. These companies listed on the "cross-border e-commerce scam blacklist" basically have the common characteristics of frequent staff turnover, opaque salary systems, and chaotic internal management. A seller reported that he joined a Shenzhen-based cross-border startup company in early 2020. However, shortly after joining the company, the verbal agreement of "never forcing overtime" was easily broken, and he even received a reprimand from his boss, saying that "overtime is the company culture and you can't always leave work early." According to reports, the company stipulates that overtime must be completed 20 hours per month, otherwise 20% of the profit will be deducted, and the time from 18:30 to 19:00 will not be included in the overtime time, and overtime hours of less than 30 minutes will not be counted either. Not only that, wages were not paid on time and were even delayed for several months. Commissions were only promised verbally, in blueprints, and in dreams, but never paid into the payroll card. Worse still, when the year-end performance did not meet the target, the company directly blamed the seller who was responsible for product development, unilaterally terminated the labor contract, and unscrupulously refused to compensate. What is even more infuriating is that after the company discovered that the whistleblower had exposed the information, it not only threatened to delete the post and threatened to blacklist him across the entire cross-border industry, but also directly called the whistleblower's current boss in an attempt to discredit the seller. Another Shenzhen distribution company has also become a frequent target of criticism from many cross-border job seekers. On the one hand, the company is suspected of false recruitment, the actual salary system does not match the interview, and it arbitrarily changes the commission system and withholds wages. On the other hand, employees are forced to work overtime voluntarily. If they leave work on time, their performance will be affected. The minimum overtime is 40 hours a month. The penalty system is even more incredible. Wearing headphones, wearing slippers, not turning off the computer, etc. will be fined. During the epidemic, employees' wages were arbitrarily deducted. In addition, relevant sources revealed that the company had a litigation dispute with its former employees. Due to unilateral termination of labor contracts and forced overtime, the court ordered the company to pay overtime wages, economic compensation for termination of labor relations, and unused annual leave wages totaling 125,579.62 yuan . To summarize, the weird and tricky companies that sellers have encountered can be roughly divided into the following categories: 1. False recruitment, real empty promises. Before joining: two days off a week, high salary, good environment, and plenty of commissions and benefits. After joining the company: salary cuts and salary delays are minor, and there is no sign of commission. Reasoning: If everyone works overtime, it means no one works overtime. The killer PUA: performance KPIs are all based on overtime hours The salary system is changed arbitrarily, employees are exploited by being forced to work overtime without pay, the management is harsh and makes random deductions, and employees are fired without reason and without compensation. Job reduction of 77%, is layoffs becoming a trend? From the various complaints of sellers, we can see that the current recruitment market is unfathomable. While being wary of various scam companies, it seems difficult to have both basic salary guarantee and commission treatment. In contrast to the situation where scam companies are everywhere, the recruitment demand of regular companies seems to have been greatly reduced, and the turnover of personnel is becoming more and more stable. "It seems to be even more difficult this year. It's supposed to be the peak recruitment season, but there are still not many companies hiring." "Companies that don't cheat don't hire much these days, and there's not much turnover. And it feels like many companies aren't really hiring, which is a waste of time and effort." "My friends and I all changed jobs at the beginning of this year. One of my very capable colleagues has been looking for a job for a month but still hasn't found a suitable one. You can imagine what the market situation is like this year." In the eyes of many sellers, this year's Amazon recruitment market is indeed somewhat sluggish compared with previous years. Many companies are striving to increase revenue and reduce costs and streamline staff. Most of the companies that have been listed on recruitment websites all year round are companies with high turnover. The explosion of cross-border e-commerce in 2020 has stimulated a large number of start-ups to emerge and compete for a piece of Amazon's fat cake. However, after experiencing the account blocking wave and price war in 2021, most cross-border companies have now scaled back their business expansion plans. In the past two years, the downward trend of the industry's overall profits has been visible to the naked eye. Looking at the big sellers that are the industry's weathervanes, although Giant Star Technology's revenue exceeded 10 billion for the first time in 2021, its net profit fell by 5.93%; Lechuang's net profit in 2021 was 184 million, a year-on-year decrease of 14.93%. Including 3C giant Anker Innovations, the profit growth rate has also declined to a certain extent. Although sales have maintained steady growth, profits have been difficult to advance, and have even declined. Big sellers are in urgent need of breaking through this bottleneck, and so are countless small and medium-sized enterprises. The continued spread of the epidemic at home and abroad, the supply chain crisis, rising geopolitical risks and other factors have made logistics the biggest pain point for cross-border companies. Delivery timeliness and operational efficiency are facing many adverse effects. The continued rise in logistics costs is undoubtedly the biggest culprit that drags down profits. At the same time, the service fees of third-party platforms are also increasing day by day. Many sellers are caught in a vicious circle where traffic is getting lower and lower, while operating costs are getting higher and higher, and product promotion is becoming more and more difficult. Just recently, Amazon announced that it would adjust FBA fees again, imposing a 5% fuel and inflation surcharge starting from April 28. Some sellers said that the general FBA delivery fee in the United States is about US$4. Assuming the average customer order value is US$20, it is equivalent to an increase of US$0.2, which directly affects 1% of the profit. "Coupled with the depreciation of the U.S. dollar exchange rate, Amazon sellers' profits should have dropped by at least 10% in the past two years at the same selling price." A senior Amazon seller revealed that in previous years, March and September were generally designated as the time for salary and job adjustments. However, due to the poor market conditions this year, there was basically no salary increase for employees in March. According to the data from Zhiyouji, looking at the position of Amazon operations alone, the salary level this year has indeed shown a certain degree of downward trend. ▲ The picture comes from Zhiyouji Many sellers have reported that the base salary for many experienced and mature operators is basically in the range of 5k to 8k. ▲ The picture comes from the seller communication group In addition to wages, recruitment demand has also shrunk significantly. According to statistics, the overall growth rate of Amazon jobs in 2022 was 52% lower than in 2021, and the number of jobs in March was a sharp decrease of 77% compared with the same period last year. ▲ The picture comes from Zhiyouji These data directly show that in the current environment of overall profit reduction, the cross-border recruitment market is no longer as hot as before. There are still many scam companies, but the personnel structure of regular companies tends to be stable, and layoffs and reductions in recruitment seem to be gradually becoming a trend. As the trend fades, the myth of getting rich quickly has faded away and cross-border e-commerce is gradually returning to normal. What do you want to say about this? Feel free to leave a message in the comment area~
|
