small e key points:
1. Blowout of demand for lithium battery users: 79 A-share lithium battery concept stocks had a cumulative net increase of nearly 200000 employees in 2021, reaching 13 times of the net increase in 2020, of which 66 had a positive increase, 21 had an increase of more than 40%, and five such as Shanghai Sk Automation Technology Co.Ltd(688155) , Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) , Cngr Advanced Material Co.Ltd(300919) , Shenzhen Dynanonic Co.Ltd(300769) , Shenzhen Yinghe Technology Co.Ltd(300457) .
2. The “battle of robbing people” started: experienced R & D, engineers and senior technicians are scarce, which has become a “sweet pastry” for enterprises, and it is common to double the salary for job hopping; Some new projects are not easy to start because of the lack of overall project leaders, and there are variables in the implementation of production capacity; Industry insiders revealed that some enterprises began to “hoard talents”. Even if there is no place to fight in the short term, they should be supported with high salary, in order to make no competitors available.
3. Turn on the “internal roll mode”: overtime is the norm, and double weekends become extravagant expectations. Some enterprises work more than 12 hours a day. The industry attraction and talent retention rate are facing severe challenges, and only 1 / 3 of College counterpart graduates stay in the lithium battery industry. Enterprises spend limited resources on a small number of key talents in order to reduce costs; Most grass-roots employees are in the state of “riding a donkey and looking for a horse”, and their high mobility leads to a lack of sense of belonging.
4. Enterprises show their talents: equity incentive has almost become a standard configuration, salary increase is a necessary action, local talent policy is a power weight, and docking with colleges and universities and reserving talents are continuously promoted as a long-term work.
Since 2021, with the advent of the tide of lithium battery production expansion, the employment demand of the industry has shown a blowout growth, and a “secret war” of talent recruitment is quietly staged in the industry.
The massive release of recruitment demand stirred the whole industry like a catfish, and the labor cost rose, while experienced high-end talents were available but not available, creating a short-term structural shortage; At the same time, the high-intensity work rhythm of the lithium battery industry makes employees call “internal volume” seriously, and the personnel retention rate and industry attraction are facing severe torture under the tide of enrollment expansion, how to improve the recruitment ability of enterprises, eliminate the pressure of rising costs caused by human growth, and transform talent advantages into industrial advantages has become a compulsory course
enrollment expansion
“At present, the lithium battery industry as a whole is in the production expansion period, and there are many incremental job opportunities. Generally, there are 3-5 years of work experience. As long as you submit your resume on the recruitment website, various headhunters will come to you.” Zeng bin (pseudonym), an employee of a lithium battery material factory in Central China, told the reporter of securities times · e company.
The situation reflected by Zeng bin may be confirmed by the enrollment expansion data of major lithium battery enterprises. According to the data, 79 A-share lithium battery concept stocks had a cumulative net increase of nearly 200000 employees in 2021, reaching 13 times of the net increase in 2020, of which 66 had a positive increase, 21 had an increase of more than 40%, and 5 such as Shanghai Sk Automation Technology Co.Ltd(688155) , Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) , Cngr Advanced Material Co.Ltd(300919) , Shenzhen Dynanonic Co.Ltd(300769) , Shenzhen Yinghe Technology Co.Ltd(300457) . Taking Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) as an example, the number of employees increased to 83600 in 2021, with a year-on-year increase of 50000, an increase of 152.74%, of which the growth of production personnel and technical personnel ranked first, with an increase of 44700 and 4487 respectively, an increase of 216.17% and 80.24%.
Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) relevant person in charge said that according to the production plan, there are many new production lines in 2021, and new production lines are put into operation in Ningde, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Guangdong and other places, so the demand for production and technical personnel has increased significantly; In addition, the company’s R & D personnel also showed a rapid growth trend. “From the perspective of recruitment structure, at present, more employees join the company through social recruitment. Social recruitment talents have mature career experience and relevant post experience. They can get started quickly and often produce results faster. For campus recruitment talents, the company pays more attention to their development potential and will be equipped with sufficient resources for training. In 2022, we will continue to introduce all kinds of talents according to the needs of production, construction and R & D 。”
More than 1000 recruitment rounds have been provided since 2021. “This year, the school has recruited a lot more students than last year.” Relevant people of the company said.
“After the Spring Festival, we recruited dozens of people at one time, the most in recent years.” Li Wangyang, deputy general manager of Jieshou Tianhong new materials Co., Ltd., told reporters that new projects are waiting to be launched and the pace of recruitment must be accelerated.
relying solely on recruitment advertisements may not be attractive enough, and the internal referral mechanism is also quite popular in the industry P align= “center” (picture source: Sunwoda Electronic Co.Ltd(300207) recruitment official account)
“Over the past decade, the installed capacity of power batteries has achieved a 100 fold growth rate, and the cultivation of lithium talents takes time. Generally, it takes five years. Relying on the stock of talents will certainly not match the growth of the industry.” Li Liang, deputy general manager of Gaogao (Shenzhen) Technology Co., Ltd., told the reporter of the securities times · e company that now many laymen have also poured into the lithium battery track, resulting in a mixture of fish and dragons in the industry, and many people need to practice slowly, which virtually increases the employment cost of the enterprise; At the same time, the high outlook of the industry has also attracted a group of powerful capital. They are willing to raise wages and push up the overall salary level of the industry. Vicious competition also occurs from time to time.
Moke, chief analyst of Zhenli research, believes that under the condition of optimistic expectations for the future, enterprises generally arrange some advance in recruitment to reserve talents, which also gave birth to the “enrollment expansion tide” to some extent.
high end talents are in extreme shortage
“Production, technology and R & D talents have always been the most scarce in the company, which is also a common phenomenon in the industry.” Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) relevant person in charge admitted. In the opinion of most respondents, the lithium battery industry is a manufacturing industry, and generally speaking, talents are highly replaceable. However, experienced R & D, engineers and senior technical talents are scarce resources in the industry, which has become a “sweet pastry” for many enterprises.
Zeng bin told reporters that his former colleagues have more than five years of working experience in battery factory and material factory. They have just changed jobs recently. The new owner’s condition is to quadruple their salary; According to the general rules of the industry, it is normal for experienced “experts” like this to double their job hopping salary.
With the improvement of industry automation, the demand structure of lithium battery talents is evolving. “Previously, the lithium battery industry was a typical labor-intensive industry. Now many processes have realized equipment substitution, which no longer requires so many front-line operators, but it has added a lot of engineers’ needs related to equipment development, maintenance and transformation.” Li Liang said that lithium batteries have high requirements for stability and consistency, and there is also a lack of high-end talents in process and quality control.
“There are too few compound technical and project management talents who can coordinate the overall situation and hold up the new production line. As far as I know, many new players in the lithium battery industry dare not start work easily because of the lack of project leaders and the talent team has not been built yet.” An employee of a cathode material factory in East China admitted that because the company started early, many technical engineers and R & D personnel have been “tempted” by their peers.
Zhao weiduo, deputy general manager of Hunan Shunhua Lithium Industry Co., Ltd., told the reporter of the securities times · e company that most of the technical talents with considerable experience are over the age of 30. They generally have families and have grown into middle and senior managers. The motivation of job hopping is not strong on the whole, unless the salary increase is very high or higher-level promotion can be achieved. “Now enterprises are in a dilemma in recruiting people. Experienced people may not be able to recruit because of salary, career planning, resettlement and other problems, but if they are trained by themselves, a fresh graduate needs at least two years of growth time, and it is difficult to catch up with the speed of production expansion. As far as I know, many high-end technical talents in production lines are basically ‘one person for two people’.”
for the technical talents who are in charge of their own work, the enterprise will make a big bet according to Li Wangyang, an undergraduate with four years of working experience in the company is currently in charge of production line technology, with an annual salary of nearly 300000. “In a county-level city like Jieshou in Fuyang, it is definitely at the head level. We have also introduced about 20 talents familiar with equipment and technology from outside, equipped with talent apartments, and provided them with three meals a day by opening a small stove alone to ensure that they have no worries about food and housing.”
Mercer told the reporter of securities times · e company that in the atmosphere of shortage of high-end talents, the disorder of “hoarding” talents in the lithium battery industry also occurs from time to time “for skilled talents with rich experience, some large companies in the industry will spend a lot of money to dig them. Even if they are useless for a short time, they will have to pay a high salary. The purpose is to make no competitors available. As far as I know, this is not a few.” He further analyzed that large factories have become leaders in a certain subdivided field. If they want to maintain the leading edge, they must curb their competitors in all aspects. If these technology development backbones are idle for a long time and do not contact the front line, they will be “raised and abandoned” within 2-3 years, and the possibility of subsequent reuse is very small.
Compared with high-end technical talents, although there is a large demand for front-line workers, it is not too difficult to recruit due to low requirements for work experience; On the other hand, under the influence of the epidemic, catering service practitioners withdrew in a large wave, and instead sent production line employees to manufacturing industries such as lithium batteries “according to the current workload, our front-line workers can get about 5000 in a month on average. If the output is large in that month, it will be higher, and there are supporting social security benefits. The treatment level is still very competitive in the first place.” Li Wangyang said that the retention rate of front-line workers in the company is very high, and they are all under the age of 40, and the structure is also more reasonable.
trapped in an inner circle
When a large number of job opportunities are released to the market, the game between enterprises and talents begins to become subtle. Enterprises use limited resources on a small number of key talents in order to reduce costs; Most grass-roots employees are in the state of “riding a donkey and looking for a horse”, and their high mobility leads to a lack of sense of belonging. In the interview, many practitioners use “inner volume” to describe the current industry ecology. In addition to endless salary competition, the high work intensity also makes the talent retention rate face severe challenges.
Huang Ming (a pseudonym) graduated with a master’s degree. At present, he has worked in less than three years and has moved around two battery factories. “Of the four colleagues who joined the original unit with me, three have changed jobs. In fact, the treatment given by the former employer is very competitive in the industry, and the annual salary for master’s graduation can reach about 250000. The reason for changing jobs is not that they are dissatisfied with the salary, but mainly because the work intensity is too high, and the overall cost performance is not high.” He told the reporter of the securities times · e company that he went to work at 8 a.m. and got off work after 9 or 10 p.m. on average, he worked more than 12 hours a day, and the weekend was even more extravagant. “Now, although the income level is not much higher than before, the decline in intensity is enough to offset the expected gap in salary, and at least there is time for independent allocation. In the next step, if I change jobs, I may choose the downstream vehicle manufacturers, especially the new forces of car manufacturing, which are closer to the terminal, and I will go to a higher level when I encounter it.”
“It’s really getting more and more ‘rolled up’! In our industry, 80% of them are on single leave. If they catch up with the critical period of production, they can rest up to 2-3 days a month; overtime is almost commonplace, but overtime pay is rarely paid according to the legal standard. ” Li Yong (pseudonym) is a graduate student who has graduated for less than a year and currently works in a head cathode material factory, Also confirmed the above situation to the reporter of the securities times · e company, “looking at the salary level through the working hours, the happiness index of employees in the lithium battery industry is actually very low. What’s more, our salary is not as high as rumored. If we are in a state where the pay is not proportional to the income for a long time, we feel no confidence after working for a long time.”
According to the data, among the 79 lithium battery concept stocks, 22 had a per capita salary increase of more than 20% in 2021, accounting for about 30%; The average salary of another 14 families showed negative growth. “The overall increase in the per capita cost of alternative types of work is small, while the increase in the salary of scarce talents is high. Because the number of the latter is much smaller than that of the former, after offset, the per capita salary growth of enterprises is not as high as the outside world thinks.” Mercer said.
Zhao weiduo admitted that at present, grass-roots technical talents have the largest turnover rate in the industry. They are relatively young and have no concerns. When changing jobs, the requirements for salary increase will not be unreasonable, and it is easier to reach a consensus with new employers. For example, college students who have just graduated generally choose advanced large factories for gold plating. After a certain amount of work experience, they will find another way out. After all, large factories are under great pressure and there are many talents, so it is not easy to get ahead.
“The technology of lithium battery industry is updated and iterated very quickly. Whoever can achieve mass production first can seize the first mover advantage. Time is money, which is a great test of the standardization degree and organizational ability of enterprise production. At present, the whole industry is in the period of production expansion, and there are many problems in the process of capacity climbing in the early stage, which need to be solved one by one. Inexperienced employees are easy to retreat, which will also reduce the talent retention rate.” Zeng Bin said.
According to Merck, the lithium battery industry is a rapidly developing emerging industry, and the overall high mobility of talents is normal, which also reflects the high prosperity of the industry.
it is worth mentioning that the enthusiasm of college graduates to flow to lithium battery industry seems to be cooling down under the expectation of “internal volume” of the industry 2012, the specialty of new energy materials and devices officially appeared in the catalogue of undergraduate majors of ordinary colleges and universities, aiming to transport talents for the lithium battery industry; In the actual recruitment, students majoring in energy and power engineering, electrical engineering and automation, materials science and other majors are also regarded as “professional counterparts”.
“Of the 10 students in the same major who graduated with me, only three were finally engaged in the lithium battery industry, accounting for only 30%; compared with going to the front line of enterprises, more people are willing to choose to go to scientific research institutes or government units because of stability.” Li Yong said.
Zhao weiduo told the reporter of securities times · e company: “according to our previous research, at present, only 1 / 3 of lithium battery related majors are finally engaged in counterpart work, and 1 / 3 are engaged in other material fields. The remaining 1 / 3 span is relatively large, including investment and even real estate.”
open the recruiting tool kit
How to match the expansion of enrollment with the expansion of production, and bring key talents under their command and retain them is a common problem faced by lithium battery enterprises.
Backed by the capital market platform, A-share lithium battery enterprises have unique advantages in talent incentive. The story of making wealth of lithium battery leader Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) has been talked about by the industry. Since 20182021, more than 50 million restricted shares and options have been granted to tens of thousands of employees. If the equity incentive in 2018 is sold at the closing price on the day of unlocking, the per capita profit of middle managers is nearly 10 million yuan. Since 2021, more than 40 of the 79 lithium battery concept stocks have issued equity incentive plans. Taking Gotion High-Tech Co.Ltd(002074) the latest stock option incentive plan as an example, the share of options granted to each personification for the first time is about 27300 shares. If calculated according to the difference between the exercise price of 18.77 yuan / share and the current stock price, the per capita floating profit will exceed 400000 yuan Farasis Energy (Gan Zhou) Co.Ltd(688567) in the restricted stock incentive plan released in June last year, the number of shares granted per capita exceeded 70000 for the first time, the grant price was 14.11 yuan / share, and the current per capita floating profit exceeded Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co.Ltd(600000) yuan.
The above-mentioned employees of cathode material factory in East China said that many talents will take whether to equip equity as an important consideration standard when choosing a job. The implementation of equity incentive by lithium battery listed companies will reduce the dimension of non listed enterprises, resulting in the Matthew effect of “the strong is always strong” to a certain extent.
for most non listed enterprises, salary increase may be the most effective way “the salary adjustment is basically standard configuration once a year. We also raised the salary of technicians significantly years ago.” An executive of a lithium battery enterprise in North China told the reporter of securities times · e company that now is the time to fight for people, production capacity and capital. Nothing can be left behind.
in addition to salary, corporate culture is also the key to retain talents “provide smooth career development channels for employees, establish an atmosphere of mentoring, such as arranging career mentors for new employees, and give guidance and training in skills and psychology, which can also increase employees’ sense of identity.” Zhang Xiang, President of New Energy Vehicle Technology Research Institute of Jiangxi new energy technology vocational college, said Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) relevant person in charge also pointed out that it is helpful to retain talents through two-way training, building a family and retaining talents.
local government support is a great weight for talent recruitment Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) relevant person in charge said that the local talent policy has introduced a large number of scientific and technological innovation talents to the company. According to the relevant policies of supporting engineering young talents in Fujian Province, full-time graduates of 985 and 211 colleges and universities can enjoy subsidies of 60% and 50% of the salary paid before tax by the enterprise respectively, and the accumulated individual subsidies shall not exceed 3 years.
In the view of most lithium battery enterprises, docking colleges and universities and reserving talents should be promoted as a long-term work. “Although some talents are not owned by me for the time being, they can be used by me.” Li Wangyang said, “by establishing a long-term cooperative relationship with colleges and universities, relevant talents can be hired to provide phased services at the key nodes of technological research, which can first save the cost of employment, and then transform the cutting-edge academic achievements of colleges and universities when necessary, which is expected to take the lead in the market competition.”
The desire for reserve talents can be seen from the salary increase of fresh graduates 3 Kairuide Holding Co.Ltd(002072) 022 college enrollment expansion offers salary conditions of 1 Ping An Bank Co.Ltd(000001) 50000 undergraduate, 12 Shenzhen Energy Group Co.Ltd(000027) 000 master’s and 340 Shenyang Machine Tool Co.Ltd(000410) 000 doctor’s, a larger increase than 2021 spring Enrollment a few months ago, including 20000 yuan for undergraduate, 20 Faw Jiefang Group Co.Ltd(000800) 00 yuan for master’s and 40 Faw Jiefang Group Co.Ltd(000800) 00 yuan for doctor’s.
Setting up R & D centers in big cities and talent gathering places as a platform for attracting high-end talents is also a feasible path. For example, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) established the future energy research institute in Minhang, Shanghai Gotion High-Tech Co.Ltd(002074) the construction of a global R & D headquarters base in Jiading, Shanghai aims to give play to the “leading” role of Shanghai’s regional economy and the appeal of the strategic highland of talents.
Of course, the industry’s final demand for talents also depends on the rhythm of enterprise production expansion and expectations for the future. Mercer said that in absolute terms, the number of employees of lithium battery enterprises should continue to grow this year, but the growth rate is difficult to predict. Since this year, affected by the epidemic prevention and control, some potential demand in the terminal market may disappear, which will affect the confidence of enterprises to a certain extent. Once the market expectation changes, the enterprise’s enrollment expansion plan will face adjustment.
