火车侠

Higher Prices Could Lead Many People And Businesses To Leave China's Big Cities

China's high growth over the past decades turned the country from a developing into a developed country. But the continuous high growth also leads to price inflation and higher wages. In big cities like Shanghai that may lead to problems that not everybody is aware of yet.

高物价将使很多人和企业转移出中国的大城市

过去几十年的高速发展使中国从一个发展中国家转变为发达国家。但是持续的高速增长同样带来了物价膨胀和更高的薪酬。在像上海这样的大城市中，这可能导致很多问题出现，但不是每个人都意识到了。

For years prices have been rising steadily in China. The price of fuel is about 3 times as high as 10 years ago for example, but also daily necessities such as rice keep on going up in price. That is the same all over China, but especially in the big cities the housing prices are also going through the roof. They are now at such a high level that even white-collar workers cannot afford to buy apartments anymore.

这些年，中国的物价稳步上涨。比如现在的燃油价格大概是10年前的3倍，但是生活必需品比如大米的价格正在持续上涨。整个中国都是这样，但大城市的房价飞涨。现在房价高到连白领阶层都不能承担买房的压力了。

I realized this for the first time about 2 years ago, when an employee came to me with a salary increase request. He wanted to buy a house and could not afford it without a higher salary. I did not grant him the higher pay so he left the company, but it made me contemplate about the relation between the level of salaries and the housing prices. They were getting out of sync fast. But housing prices only kept on rising after that, and at a much faster pace than the average salary increase.

我第一次意识到这个是在两年前，一个雇员来找我要求加薪。他想要购买一套房子但是如果没有更高的薪水，他根本无法承受。我没有给他加薪水，所以他离开了公司。但这引起了我对薪资水平和房价之间的关系的思考，它们处于不同步增长状态。房价是后涨的，但是涨速却远远超过了平均工资的涨速。

Last year one of my best employees had a similar problem, she and her husband realized they would never be able to afford their own property in Shanghai and decided to go back to their hometown. There were more jobs there now and even though salaries were lower, they would have much more spending power and could afford their own house. Since then I heard similar stories from other entrepreneurs, many of their best people want to leave after a few years because the quality of life in secondary or tertiary cities is much better than in Shanghai.

去年，我最优秀的员工之一也遇到了类似的问题。她和她的丈夫意识到他们是不可能在上海供得起房子的，于是决定回老家。现在那里有了更多的工作机会尽管工资低了点，但是他们有更高的消费力而且供得起房子。从那时以来，我经常从其他企业家那里听到相同的情况。很多优秀的员工几年之后离职了，因为在二线三线城市，他们能有更高的生活品质。

For companies this can lead to serious problems. Wages have gone up tremendously over the past years. Starting salaries right out of university are still roughly the same, mainly because there is such a huge supply of fresh graduates. But if you want to keep the good people you need to give them wage increases of at least 15% per year. Over the past 5 years salaries for top managers have roughly doubled, and people will leave if they don't get what they feel they deserve. Some top programmers now earn more than good programmers would earn in my home country Holland.

这种情况会给企业造成很严重的问题。薪水在过去的几年里以惊人的速度增长。初出校园的雇员起始工资仍旧是相同的，主要是因为有大量的刚毕业的大学生。但是如果你想要留住人才，那么你必须每年给他们涨至少15%的薪资。在过去的5年里，上层主管们的工资翻了一番，如果他们没有拿到他们觉得应得薪水，他们就会走人。一些顶级程序员现在赚的钱比我的祖国荷兰高级程序员多。

Friends running businesses in Shanghai are increasingly talking about setting up branches in China's inner provinces. There salaries are still a lot lower and there is a lot more talent now than just a few years ago. That leads to additional costs, but it may offset the higher wages that they would have to pay in Shanghai.

在上海做生意的朋友纷纷都谈起要在中国内陆省市开分公司。那里工资会低很多，而且比起前几年现在有更多的人才。那将要追加成本，但是可能抵消了在上海需要支付的高工资。

My strategy has always been to hire good people out of university and pay them average salaries. Not top salaries, so you weed out the people that only work for money; they should also like their job and the good work environment that I am trying to create. You have to teach these employees a lot, because Chinese universities give them tons of knowledge but not necessarily the knowledge needed to work in the real world. The best people get high salary increases so they won't be tempted to leave, and the ones that are average performers still get increases of 10% or more. This means that even the average people stay at least 2-3 years, which is quite long for job-hopping China, and good people stay even longer. Because the entry salaries didn't increase very much I was able to keep the increase of total salaries relatively low.

我的策略一直是初出校园的人才，支付他们平均水平的工资，而不是高工资。这样就可以淘汰那些只为钱而工作的人。而且他们也会喜欢他们的工作和我尽可能为他们创造的良好的工作环境。你需要教这些雇员很多东西，因为中国的大学只给他们灌输大量的知识，但是这些知识在现实世界往往是没有用的。最好的雇员会得到高额加薪，这样他们就不会跳槽。而表现平平者们人就可以得到10%的加薪或者更多一点。这就意味着一般的人至少可以待上2-3年时间，这对于跳槽率高的中国来说是非常长的了，而优秀人才会待得更久些。因为起始工资没有增加太多，所以我能够让我支付的所有薪水增长得相对低一点。

But many companies do not want to hire people right out of university because of their lack of skills. And they are the ones that may be in trouble soon, because not only has their total salary cost more than doubled over the past years, but they are also still losing their employees because they can't afford to live in Shanghai anymore. China is not a cheap labor destination like it used to be, and certainly not the big Chinese cities.

但是很多公司都不愿意聘请刚出校门的人，因为他们没有技能。而且他们是很快会陷入麻烦的一群人，不只是因为他们所有的工资花费是前几年的两倍，而且因为无法承受住在上海的压力他们仍旧会跳槽。中国不再像以前一样是廉价劳动力的聚集地，特别是中国的大城市。

Because the countryside has developed a lot over the past years and many factories have moved from the East coast to inland China, there are a lot more job opportunities in smaller cities. I expect that over the next couple of years many white-collar workers will choose to leave cities like Shanghai to work in their home provinces. Similar to what has happened to blue-collar workers over the past years as well, they can get similar jobs and salaries close to their home towns now so they don't want to work on the other side of the country anymore.

因为在过去的几年里农村已经发展了很多，而且许多工厂都从中国的东海岸转移到内陆地区，所以在小型点的城市有了更多的工作机会。我想再过几年，很多白领阶层会选择离开像上海这样的城市回到他们家乡去工作。同过去的几年出现在蓝领阶层中的现象一样，现在他们可以在家乡获得相似的工作和报酬，所以他们不会再想到远离家乡的城市工作。

There are signs that this may happen sooner rather than later: in Saturday's English-language newspaper the Shanghai Daily a reporter wrote that so far 90% of the domestic staff did not return from their hometowns to Shanghai after Chinese New Year. Last year the figure was around 30% at this time. And the staff that come back are asking for wage increases of up to 30%, meaning that a full-time cleaning lady now earns around USD 500 per month. If these people are now all staying in their home towns because of better economic conditions very soon their white-collar colleagues will follow their paths.

已经有迹象表明这很快就会发生：在周六的英语报纸《上海日报》上，一个记者写道迄今为止，90%的内地员工在春节以后没有从家乡回到上海工作。去年的这个时候数据为30%。而且回来的员工都要求增加30%的薪水。如果这些人都因为更好的经济环境留在他们的家乡，那么他们的白领同事们将很快步追随他们的脚步而去。

What does that mean for a city like Shanghai? Companies won't leave, but they will likely move part of their operations inland as well. Probably the upward pressure on salaries will be less and this may have an effect on the housing prices as well. Many new apartments are empty now waiting for real estate prices to increase further, so they can be sold at an even higher price. But if apartment owners realize that there are simply less people who can (and want) to buy them this may change. The sudden end of a bubble? Maybe. After over a decade in China I have learned that things can change fast here

那对于像上海这样的城市，这意味着什么呢？公司不会迁走，但是他们很可能会将一部分转移到内陆。也许，工资上涨的压力会变小，这也可能会对房价造成一定的影响。许多新公寓空置着等待不动产价格更上一层楼，这样它们就能以更高的价格卖出。但是如果房主们意识到很少有人能够（并且想要）买这些公寓，那么这种现象可能会有所改变。泡沫突然破灭？也许吧。在中国待了是十年后我知道，在这里事情会迅速变化。