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Q: Are Chinese workers useless because of low pay or do they receive low pay because they are useless?
I witness countless examples of useless employees on a daily basis. There's the small supermarket next to my apartment where the son-in-law of the owner sits there all day every day playing games on his phone, occasionally pausing to stock the shelves but pretending not to notice when you need someone to weigh fruit. In larger supermarkets, the groups of 5+ employees stand in the aisles chatting all day and seemingly do nothing. I've worked in an office where there are 5 Chinese office assistants but not enough work to go around for even 1 so they spend the day playing computer games and pretending to look busy when the boss walks past their desk. There was the cleaning lady at a school I used to work at who would sit around all day doing nothing while kids pissed all over the floor of the bathroom and the odor was so strong that the parents were complaining and moving their chairs to the other side of the room.Then a lot of these same people constantly complain about their low salaries. So do these people resent their low salaries and therefore give no effort to their jobs or would they be paid more if they actually tried and did a decent job?
They are useless because they had useless parents, and because they receive no training.
Covering them in gold does not make them shine.
It's a low cost economy, designed to take best advantage of Western greed.
China supplies the low cost workers, the western consumers get low cost products and the companies controlling it make a lot of money.
It's an amazing success story, and wages are on their way up. So the plan to free millions of people from grinding poverty is working well.
Some areas even have what can be considered as full employment. So the locals can enjoy what we lost in the UK decades ago: the ability to leave a job on a Monday and start a new job on a Tuesday. This means of course that shop workers etc can have a more relaxing and stress free life, because the job market conditions have freed them from the bully boy tactics of company owners as they try to enforce efficiency improvements. Improvements designed of course to enrich their own wallets at the expense of the wellbeing of their staff.
Sounds good to me 
Sinobear:
However, automation and domestic production is on its way in.
The rising salaries are causing drop-offs in orders and companies are relocating to other parts of S.E. Asia.
dongbeiren:
That makes a lot of sense at a macro level but I'm assuming that back when the employment situation was better in the U.K. workers still gave more of a damn about their jobs than most Chinese do. I wonder if worker attitudes will improve as wages go up in China.
Scandinavian:
@Sino's point is very valid. But remember there is import taxes on everything, so for the people who've been lifted ever so slightly out of poverty, to use their new "wealth" they probably have to buy Chinese brands. So this will help slow the slowdown caused by what the bear writes
Interesting question.
The supermarket I go to usually have a lot of staff, so much so that they gather around gossiping. Sometimes I ask them for locations of certain things I want to buy and their best effort was "oh, it's over the other end of the fruits section". Where I come from, the staff will gladly show you where it is by bringing you to the exact location. That was "best effort". Worst effort? Don't even ask!
On the flip side, we have a very hard working cleaning ayi in our school, cleans all day without so much of a grumble. Never seen her without a smile.
My conclusion? Those in the supermarket are there just for the pay, screw the service. The ayi? She is a jolly soul who enjoys her work and puts in effort to make life better for everyone and herself.
I work in a factory and source from many other factories and people I come across generally care about their jobs. Are hard working and dependable. I am not sure it actually has anything to do with them taking any amount of pride in their work rather than fear of losing the job and going back down to a low paying gig. But from my own workers to sales staff at companies I source from. I come across alot of hard working people every day.... Efficient and smart is a whole other story.
dongbeiren:
It would make sense that people with something to lose put in more effort to avoid losing it than those who are already at the bottom and have nowhere to fall because they can always find another 1,500 kuai a month job. Perhaps a lot of these people at the bottom feel trapped because their lack of money, guanxi, education and skills means they don't have a chance to move up into higher paying fields. While social mobility in the West is low (especially in America) it seems to be even lower in China. Yes, there are rags to riches stories anywhere but it's pretty tough to pull off here.
jeffTowns:
Exactly. The Chinese society is highly diversified. Actually the majority of the people work really hard to eke out a living, like the miners and the builders. Most of the value they create are taken away by their bosses.
They are not *that* useless, you are probaly typing this on keyboard made by Chinese employee, or a touchscreen, or... You got my point, a lot of things are made in China. China went out of abject (and man-made) poverty by being a large and cheap factory. If they are this incompetent, then, why it became The World Factory ? Not bad for a bunch of incompetent, hu ?
Training for many crafts is non-existing, mostly craft to serve a *domestic* demand, like plumbers, craftsmen, hospital personnel, etc. I believe that's an export-oriented economy. On top of this, the notions of civil society and public service is not quite understood, so that's one more pressure for competent services that does not exist.
Overstaffing of shops, I'm not quite sure of why is it so, but yes, that's mystfying. I suspect that bathroom cleaning, street cleaning and public gardening are a form of welfare for old people or really, really unskilled workers. Maybe a legacy from the communist era, many communist countries had that "8 guys for 1 mop, look Ma, full employment !" organization.
RiriRiri:
Mmmh, I still suspect the #1 criteria to become the World Factory was to abandon forever the idea of breathable air, drinkable water and edible food.
Not really out of the league of any country with enough surface and a population with low self-esteem.
Anyway, people talk about laziness, but I think laziness is more common for the low skill jobs, the real plague of higher level jobs is more about all that super proactive incompetence going on, building up huge projects into a mega pile of big useless dump because of low expectations, no reality checks, self praise and a big big tendency to overestimate one's own capacities at all levels.
DrMonkey:
@RiriRiri Yes, the "The cat's color does not matter" way of management ^^ China is not unique in this, but they got the lead now :p
Scandinavian:
So you don't think the person putting the "Z" key on the keyboards are uselezzzzzz ?
I simply blame the ridiculous nationwide money making scam a.k.a. the Chinese education system. It is not designed to produce useful people.
I think some Chinese workers are useless due to total apathy. A lot of people here are apathetic about every aspect of their lives. Don't care about other people, don't care about doing a good job, don't care how their actions affect anyone else, don't care about receiving good service or quality (stock answer for this seems to be "this is China what can you do"), don't care about safety, don't care about umpteen other things. So this attitude is taken into the workplace, as fore the low wages that is just some tight fisted employer paying the lowest he can get away with. If he gets a good worker it's a bonus.
Chinese employees are useless because people here don't give a rat's ass about anything but themselves, this is why China has a hard time to become a services oriented society despite the strong will of the central government and is stuck with low value-added jobs (manufacturing, bottom of the barrel domestic products, cheap knock-offs, ...).
Paying them more does not mean that one will work harder, I have quite a few friends who learned that the hard way, in fact the higher the salary the least Chinese employees will do, they feel more secure and instead of thinking about saving more money they might spend their time trying to find a even higher paying job.
Now try to behave the same way as a foreigner, which would seem logical as in most Chinese companies foreigners can't ever get promoted no matter how hard they work, you will be quickly reminded to work hard for your money, and your Chinese coworkers (who spend their worktime chatting on QQ/Weixin and shopping on Taobao) might even stab you in the back
Not sure if it is useless jobs or useless people. There are jobs that exist in China but do not exist in the US. For example, you fill your car by yourself at the gas pump in the US. But in China there is this job called refuel men. There is also this welcome job at average size Chinese restaurants where she will say welcome when you enter the restaurant. But this job is not existing for average restaurants in the US.
Spiderboenz:
I guess you have never heard of a full service gas station. They used to be extremely common in USA, but are pretty rare now. We also have people who greet you at restaurants and take you to your seat. After you're seated, you meet your server. I believe that they are called Hosts (but don't quote me on the name) So... Where exactly in USA are you from that does not have these jobs that actually do exist in USA?
ChineseAmerican:
There are hosts in the restaurants back home. But the job that I am talking about in here only greet you when you enter. They do not follow you inside and guide you to your sit. They just stand outside of the gate and greet you when you about to enter. That is not host.
They are employed in meaningless jobs to keep them off the street from bitching about everyday issues. Employment, if you call it that, is a way to control dissent fro
there are a lot of busy work jobs in china just to keep people from complaining, im not sure a country can have full employment with technology reducing labor needs over the long haul, if china had 3 percent farmers like america, it would chaos and hell here, the governments manipulated currency and keeps cleaners making 800 a month so people can eat basic food and not go hungry, keeps phone and internet at lower prices,
it appears that needs are kept at minimum costs and wants are taxed and expensive for those who want something but not something you need. in america watching cable could cost your 70 to 100 a month and basic tv service for the elderly would be about 20 dollars a month but cable here is 750 rmb a year.
i think agriculture technology and demographics will destroy this stable arrangement but they are trying to hold it together for as long as possible.
im not sure any form of government can really provide and support a billion people in an efficient way without corruption, not sure it can be done at all.
A chicken or the egg question.
Useless because low pay?
Low pay because useless?
I vote useless because of Chinagov (education, history, culture of face), and low pay because of Chinagov (dictatorship, hopelessness, submissiveness), and the two are not necessarily connected in a causal relationship, though the two together do exascerbate a dismal situation to spiral downward faster.
