With the rising labor cost in the packaging industry, will the automatic folder and gluer machine machinery be the next local tyrant?

In recent years,the packaging industry has developed rapidly.In traditional manufacturing enterprises, product packaging is a labor-intensive process, in which weighing, blanking, sealing, sorting, packing and other operations are not only slow and inefficient, but also due to the annual increase of labor cost in recent years, the packaging process in China’s manufacturing industry has become more and more unable to meet the requirements of customers.Therefore,some large and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises have gradually started the traformation of packaging automation.

Due to various reasons such as enterprise scale, capital accumulation and product structure, there is a gap in the degree of packaging automation in China’s manufacturing enterprises.Some packaging enterprises have been fully automated , some have been partially automated, some small and micro enterprises still stay in semi-automatic packaging operation whlie a few family workshop enterprises even stay in full manual operation. However,the demographic dividend has gradually been disappearing , and automatic equipment has become a necessity for the development of packaging machinery industry.

Yin Chengji, spokesman of the Ministry of human resources and social security, said at a press conference held on October 25 that by the end of September, a total of 24 regions had adjusted the minimum wage standard, with an average increase of 18%.Yin Chengji introduced that at present, the highest monthly minimum wage in China is 1620 yuan in Shanghai, and the highest hourly minimum wage is 15.2 yuan in Beijing and Xinjiang. Zhejiang ranks seventh with 1470 yuan.

In the past two years, the national minimum wage has consistently maintained a high growth rate. In 2011, 24 provinces adjusted the minimum wage standard, with an average growth rate of 22%  and in 2012, 25 provinces adjusted the minimum wage, with an average increase of 20.2%. However, before the end of the year in 2013, the number of provinces that adjusted the minimum wage standard was the same as in 2011.From the perspective of the whole year, the number of provinces that adjusted the minimum wage standard in 2013 is expected to exceed that of last year.

The continuous rise of the minimum wage also means that enterprise labor costs are rising, and the era of cheap labor is passing away. Packaging has become a headache for manufacturing enterprises. In addition to the problem of labor cost, there are “three difficulties” such as recruitment, employment and retention.

Compared with the regional and periodic “labor shortage” a few years ago, the “labor shortage” has gradually been turning into a structural and long-term labor problem.Areas with labor shortage have already spread from economically developed areas such as the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta and Beijing Tianjin Hebei in previous years. For example, Anhui, Henan and other provinces with large labor export are also experiencing labor embarrassment.And the lack of workers has also expanded from senior technicians, professional workers and skilled workers to ordinary front-line production workers.

Moreover, in the management of the new generation of employees, many entrepreneurs feel at a loss.“The new generation of employees with the post-80s and even post-90s as the main body are full of personality and active thinking, but they have less hard-working spirit and struggle toughness.They would leave when they are slightly unhappy.”Many entrepreneurs of folder and gluer machine describe it this way. It is difficult to stay, which directly leads to the excessive employee turnover rate of many enterprises, resulting in the further rise of enterprise employment costs.

In today’s labor market, workers are having more and more choices. However, in such a market, the employment attraction of an industry is inevitably related to its own social awareness, labor intensity, salary level and other factors. However, the packaging industry lacks advantages in these aspects, which also causes the employment problem of manufacturing and packaging enterprises to be particularly prominent. How to alleviate this situation has become an urgent development proposition in the industry.

The most labor-intensive production link is also the “core field” of machinery instead of labor. How to reduce the dependence of manufacturing and packaging enterprises on the number of labor? With the increasingly prominent employment problem and the intensification of market competition, more and more enterprises begin to change their development ideas, pay keen attention toautomatic folder and gluer machine and hope to realize the upgrading and transformation of enterprises by investing in automatic folder and gluer machine. At present, the amazing purchasing power of domestic folder and gluer machine is a clear proof. The application of automatic equipment technology such as automatic folder and gluer machine is expanding day by day. High labor costs are likely to make the automatic packaging machinery industry the next local tyrant.