Fresh graduates drifting in Yiwu

At a time when employment pressure is very intense, finding a job has become a big problem for college students. This article interviewed three recent graduates living in Yiwu . Let us take a look at their experiences!

Wang Xiaomeng got off work at 4:30 in the afternoon, but she had no mood or energy for entertainment. She worked as an assistant for 6 hours and an intern anchor for 2 hours in the TikTok live broadcast room. She only had a half-hour break at noon. She was already thirsty and just wanted to go home to rest. "Home" is the dormitory provided by the company, which was used as an office before. The words "Manager's Office" and "Meeting Room" are posted on the door. 10 girls live together and share one bathroom.

Born and raised in Anhui, Wang Xiaomeng never left to study. She will graduate in July 2024, and she chose to become a "Yiwu drifter" and join the cross-border e-commerce team. Yiwu is a famous "world small commodity capital". In recent years, Yiwu has actively transformed into e-commerce, with outstanding express delivery and e-commerce live broadcasting.

This county-level city with an area of ​​more than 1,000 square kilometers has more than 1 million market operators. In the e-commerce industry alone, when Yiwu had 190,000 e-commerce operators in 2019, there were already 500,000 employees. Today, Yiwu's e-commerce operators have also exceeded the 500,000 mark.

Currently, Wang Xiaomeng's monthly salary is 4,500 yuan. If she can become a regular anchor, it can be increased to 5,000 yuan plus commission, 1 yuan for every 10 US dollars in sales. She will not have five social insurances and one housing fund, and two days off a week is a luxury, but she knows that this is very common in Yiwu.

"I came to Yiwu to make a lot of money." Wang Xiaomeng thinks Yiwu has many opportunities to make money, so she is willing to make compromises. If you ask netizens online: Should I go to Yiwu to work? Netizens will advise you that you can try to start a business, but you need to think twice about working, because this is "a paradise for entrepreneurs and a hell for workers."

The three elements of "hell" are: five social insurances and one housing fund, which are either completely absent or incomplete; long working hours, with only one day off per week; vague job boundaries and diverse work content. But for "Wang Xiaomeng", even if they start their "Yiwu drifting" life in "hell" mode, they can still support themselves. More importantly, above "hell" is "heaven", and working can be a reserve for starting a business.

01

Wang Xiaomeng went through a process of going from dissatisfaction to acceptance when looking for a job in Yiwu. In December, Yiwu was already in the winter chill, and Wang Xiaomeng and several classmates rushed here from Anhui with large and small bags. The opportunity to come here was that they came into contact with an agency from Yiwu when they were in school. After Wang Xiaomeng and others submitted their resumes, they received a notice to go to Yiwu on a certain day.

Wang Xiaomeng thought she had secured a job, but she didn't expect to continue attending job fairs in Yiwu. At the job fair, Wang Xiaomeng submitted her resume and went through interviews, and soon found herself in "hell mode". However, it was no longer realistic to return to Anhui, so she, an English major, chose a company that does cross-border live streaming, which does not include five social insurances and one housing fund, but provides a probationary salary of 4,000 yuan, housing and two meals a day.

Joining the company is just the first step to officially becoming a "Yiwu drifter", and challenges follow one after another. Wang Xiaomeng, who joined the company as an assistant, had to remember 600 product selection information within a day. On the third day of joining the company, the boss extended the live broadcast time by two hours and asked several newcomers, including Wang Xiaomeng, to "trial broadcast". There was no commission during the trial broadcast. When Wang Xiaomeng went on the air for the first time, his palms were sweaty, but he still persisted.

This situation not only happens in Yiwu's e-commerce industry.

"I want to find a foreign trade salesperson in Yiwu, with a day off and 1.5 days off per week, a salary of 5K or more, and social security after being converted to a regular employee. Why is it so difficult to find one?" Li Zhuxin posted on the Internet, full of confusion.

Li Zhuxin is a 2023 English major graduate with a CET-6 certificate, a computer level 2 certificate, and an English teacher qualification certificate. This summer, Li Zhuxin, who graduated in Hangzhou, came to Yiwu. In just a few weeks, she interviewed 15 companies, mainly trading companies.

But she found that her bachelor's degree was no advantage here. Regardless of the size of the company, the boss would first examine the experience, and as for the language, "sufficient is enough." When it comes to social security, recruiters either admit that there is no social security, or promise that it will be paid after one to three years of regular employment. The boss of a cross-border e-commerce company in Yiwu said that most of the jobs in his company "do not require academic qualifications", but they expect job seekers to "preferably have some experience."

Even if there is only one month of experience, it means that the job seeker has a basic understanding of the job, and there is no need to train from scratch: "It is not possible to train new people all the time." In the end, Li Zhuxin chose the company she is currently working for. The company exports textiles and has its own factory. There are only five employees, one of whom is the boss's son. Although there is still only one day off, at least social security is paid, but there are only five insurances, no housing fund (housing provident fund), and the salary is just over 4,000 yuan. After the baptism of the interview, Li Zhuxin is relatively satisfied.

In fact, Yiwu has a lot of support for fresh graduates who come to work in Yiwu. Enterprises can get subsidies for fresh graduates to register for social insurance, and fresh graduates themselves also have subsidies. Li Zhuxin recently successfully applied for a subsidy and can get 800 yuan per month: "But I think my boss doesn't know about this subsidy at all, and I'm too lazy to remind her."

Li Zhuxin started her job as a foreign trade salesperson, but her job involved much more than that. Most of the week, she is an "urban beauty", sitting in office buildings around Yiwu Zhongfu Square, communicating with clients in English. One day a week, she works as a clerk in the trade city. The huge Yiwu International Trade City gathers more than 70,000 merchants and is a landmark building here. Customers from all over the world come in and out here, looking for sources of goods. At the end of the day, there are usually no more than 5 people coming into the store for consultation, and Li Zhuxin spends most of her time in boredom.

From time to time, the boss would take Li Zhuxin out to eat with clients, and the meals would last until nine or ten o'clock. During the days of attending the "Canton Fair", Li Zhuxin worked until the early morning every day. In addition, Li Zhuxin also edited promotional videos for the company. When the boss wanted to open a Douyin store, she took pictures of the products and put them online.

What frustrates her most is that she sometimes has to help her boss take care of his son who is still in primary school, pick him up from school and help him with his homework. Liu Ya, who also graduated this year and came to Yiwu from Ningbo, has a similar experience. She joined a freight forwarding company for the Indian market and her original position was brand planning. Although the company has about 50 people, she still has to "do everything", from ground promotion to offline event planning, and even poster design.

02

In addition to the challenges of work, "becoming an isolated island" is the reality they are fighting. "Yiwu drifters" all understand that if they don't establish social connections in this city, they can't really integrate. But this is not easy to do. Wang Xiaomeng's work time is not too late. She stops broadcasting at 4:30 every day and takes a short break before leaving work.

But she was exhausted from working so hard that she had no energy to socialize or even go out on her own. In the company dormitory where 10 people lived together, Wang Xiaomeng's snoring displeased her roommates, which made the already not-so-close relationship even worse. She often communicated online with her sisters who came to Yiwu with her, and learned that although they lived alone, they had to spend more than 1,000 yuan a month on rent, and their situation was not much better than hers.

The high mobility makes it difficult for "Yiwu drifters" to have stable interpersonal relationships. Some people cannot stay. Wang Xiaomeng joined as a new assistant and trainee anchor: "All the undergraduates before me have left." If she can successfully become a regular employee, Wang Xiaomeng doesn't think many of those who came in at the same time will be able to stay. In addition, people who are colleagues today may start their own business tomorrow. A salesperson before Li Zhuxin has already gone out to "go it alone" and do live broadcasts to "open cards." Sometimes, Li Zhuxin would watch his live broadcasts silently.

Everyone is busy and everyone wants to make money. This is Li Zhuxin's impression of Yiwu. The most direct impact comes from her boss: "How busy is she? She can't waste a single minute in her life. She is busy in the store, and after work she has to attend an event, so she invites a manicurist to the store, and she is busy working while doing her manicure. When it comes to buying clothes, she not only doesn't go shopping, but also doesn't have time to buy online. She just sees a piece of clothing posted by someone in WeChat Moments that she thinks is good, and she sends the picture to buy it. She doesn't waste time retouching photos, she sends them to me, and gives me money to open a membership of Meitu Xiu Xiu to help her retouch them."

Li Zhuxin still remembers that some time ago, a star came to Yiwu for a concert. Half an hour before the show started, someone took a video showing that the audience seats were empty. People thought that Yiwu people were too busy to watch concerts. In fact, Yiwu people also watched the concert, but they just didn't want to watch it at the right time: "The concert started at 7:30, and people here wanted to enter at 7:25."

Liu Ya came to Yiwu from Ningbo after graduating from university and has been working here for half a year. Although there are dozens of people in the company, she has no friends in her life. She only has colleagues with whom she has a general relationship and colleagues with whom she has a good relationship.

On the one hand, it is a bustling city with people from all corners of the world, and foreigners and authentic foreign restaurants can be seen everywhere. Liu Ya experienced the human touch and fireworks of Yiwu. On the other hand, it is a city where "everyone wants to make money", and Liu Ya has learned to be alone here.

Colleagues who had a good relationship with Liu Ya were eager to find a date for her, and urged her to "find a rich man." If Liu Ya told which area of ​​Yiwu a local man lived in, her colleagues could immediately determine what the man's family conditions were like.

However, such efforts did not have any effect, and Liu Ya remained single. Many times, Liu Ya wanted to have some fun, but found that her colleagues were not free, so she had to go alone. In the past, Liu Ya felt that it was not a glorious thing to go to the night market or watch movies alone, but now she is used to it. When she is in a bad mood, she goes to KTV to rent a small private room and sing for three hours for 19.9 yuan.

Liu Ya rented a single room near her workplace. The area is not big, only about 20 square meters, but it has everything, including a kitchen and bathroom. The whole building where Liu Ya's single room is located belongs to the landlord, who specially divided it into single rooms for rent. Such single rooms can be found everywhere in Yiwu, with rents of around 1,000 yuan. They are densely packed, separating the workers one by one.

03

What makes the "Yiwu drifters" persist? Working may be "hell", but the "paradise" of entrepreneurship is just ahead. The three classmates who went to Yiwu from Anhui with Wang Xiaomeng almost wanted to resign, but she wanted to make a lot of money and still wanted to work hard to get a permanent job: "At least until the end of the year (before the Spring Festival)."

Wang Xiaomeng was willing to come to Yiwu because she saw the opportunities here. However, she believes that she is far from being able to start a business. Her current goal is to become a live streamer: "Assisting is worthless and can be replaced. And now I have adapted to being a live streamer and want to make more money. I don't want to be someone who can be replaced at any time. My boss values ​​me very much and gave me a bonus of several hundred yuan a few days ago."

If she becomes a regular employee, Wang Xiaomeng's income will hopefully go up a level. She heard that the previous anchors could earn 5,000 yuan in commission a month, plus the basic salary, that's about 10,000 yuan. This will make her feel that she is one step closer to her dream.

Although the salary is average and the five social insurances and one housing fund are incomplete, Li Zhuxin wants to learn communication skills from her boss. "The boss is really generous in this regard." When Li Zhuxin went to the Canton Fair with her boss, she was taken to do marketing. The boss didn't speak English, so the team "intercepted" foreigners in high-end hotels and airports, stuffed them with brochures promoting their own textile business, and Li Zhuxin translated on the side.

Li Zhuxin also feels that Yiwu has changed her a lot: "I used to be an i person, but now I am very e." i and e are the dimensions of the personality test MBTI, i represents introversion and e represents extroversion. Whether at the Canton Fair, visiting a store, or even visiting a night market, Li Zhuxin always wants to exchange business cards with people, and it would be best if she could add the other person's WeChat using her personal mobile phone.

The boss does not allow privately adding clients on WeChat, but Li Zhuxin wants to build connections for herself. If a foreign trade salesperson has enough connections, he can work as a "SOHO", that is, freelance, and connect flexibly.

At the beginning of this job, Li Zhuxin wanted to take the civil service exam to become a teacher, but now she feels that the two paths of continuing to develop in Yiwu and becoming a teacher are now "half and half" in her mind.

Being in "hell" but hoping to go to "heaven" to gain energy seems to be a common situation in Yiwu. A young man who also works in Yiwu said that he is an "Amazon clerk" during the day and runs his own online store at night, "very tiring but also very fulfilling."

It is even more difficult for those who do not have the intention to "go it alone" to persevere. Liu Ya's boss is about 30 years old and full of energy. Like Li Zhuxin, Liu Ya was also shocked. Walking on the street with her boss, they passed by a store. The boss saw that the store had not added WeChat, so he immediately walked in to start a conversation. Liu Ya did not go in, and shivered in the cold wind on the street.

She has no idea of ​​starting a business in the future. She admires her boss but doesn't want to be him. Liu Ya has already thought about leaving. When she was interning in Ningbo, the cold office building and the workplace atmosphere discouraged her. She chose to come to Yiwu because she thought it might be more vibrant. In this respect, Yiwu did meet her expectations, but frequent overtime, "PUA" from her direct superior, and the loneliness of "Yiwu drifting" are all eroding her confidence to stay here.

(Wang Xiaomeng, Liu Ya, and Li Zhuxin in this article are all pseudonyms)

Author: Bi Andi; WeChat public account: Zimubang (ID: wujicaijing)