We all know that among the companies that have lost the most in A shares in 2021, several major airlines rank at the top. The reason is that almost everyone knows that they are affected by the epidemic. Due to different industries, the aviation industry has been most affected by the epidemic. This is understandable, but it is difficult to explain. In the same industry, the differences in losses among companies are also relatively large. This shows that during the same industry downturn, or Speaking of special times, the risk tolerance of each company is still very different.
Of course we cannot compare all these differences, and we don’t even want to find out the specific impact of these differences. We will make some detailed comparisons and leave the judgment to friends who have seen the comparison data.
The frequency of the word "employee" appearing in the annual report is a reference indicator. Since the specific circumstances of each year are quite different, for example, if there is an employee stock ownership plan in that year, the frequency will increase significantly. In the China Southern Airlines annual report, since 2017, the word "employees" has appeared more and more often, but in 2021 it has returned to the level of 5 years ago. Is it because there is really not much to say amid the epidemic? .
In 2018, the number of employees of China Southern Airlines exceeded 100,000, but the good times did not last long. After only a slight increase of 3% in 2019, it turned around and declined. In 2020, the number of employees was maintained at 100,000. In 2021, It still fell below 100,000 people and returned to the scale of 98,000 people.
As revenue grows, it is normal for the workforce to expand in 2019 and before. Since 2020, due to the impact of the epidemic, revenue has fallen sharply, and the number of employees cannot be reduced at all, let alone thinking about great development after the epidemic; but salaries can still be reduced, and in fact, more of them should be due to reductions in measurement subsidies and other subsidies. This resulted in a decrease in employee expenses.
However, after the decrease in employees in 2021, employee expenses are still rising. In addition to the impact of compensation for layoffs, there must be other reasons. Employees found that the original salary model was no longer applicable, and the obvious feeling was that their income had dropped. Of course, there would be some highly capable employees who would leave, etc. The company could not completely ignore these, and would still make appropriate adjustments. As a result, employee expenditures in 2021 have basically returned to 2019 levels.
In fact, no matter how accurate and fair the company's salary calculation is, employees don't actually care much. Most people only care about the income they receive. If it feels like it is declining, few people will think it is fair. Obviously the more precise the calculation method, the easier it is to find unfair places.
This is why once the environment changes, companies that can pass costs on to employees or suppliers will fall badly. Employees and suppliers are here only to make money. Who is stupid enough to play with you? Therefore, the interests will only be damaged in the short term, and the time will be slightly longer, and at worst, they will vote with their "feet".
We will not comment on the decline in per capita output value. It is an accidental event due to environmental influences. After falling in 2020, per capita employee expenditures began to rise again, and they rose with a vengeance, setting a new record of 2.7 billion yuan per capita. I think this is noteworthy for at least three reasons.
First, more grassroots and low-income employees may be laid off, because the workload of these groups is declining and there is no need for so many people. If the number of people is averaged, the average per capita will increase. ; Second, there are the aforementioned impacts such as layoff compensation and reissue of some subsidies; third, the cost of living for the entire Chinese population is rising, and China Southern Airlines’ employees mainly live in China, so it is impossible to completely ignore the impact of these environments. . On the one hand,
's revenue has declined, and on the other hand, employee expenses have increased. The ratio of employee expenses to revenue has increased from 18% to more than 26%. I often see in some news comments that many friends say that the increase in labor costs is justified. Who says it shouldn't be? Otherwise, what are we struggling for?
However, after labor costs rose, changes in the company's cost structure ruthlessly showed that there was not much room left for employee income growth.what to do? Someone has to let part of it come out. Who could it be?
From the perspective of the professional composition of employees, the structural changes are not very obvious. The main professional composition is flight attendants, maintenance systems and pilots. The complexity of the professional composition of employees announced in its annual report is a bit high, although it has industry attributes. The particularity, but we will take a look at the situation of and Spring Airlines another day to make a comparison.
The biggest increases are air marshals safety officers, followed by pilots and information systems employees. I am not familiar with the regulations or industry supervision in this area. Based on my experience in the chemical production industry, I speculate that the growth of air police safety personnel is most likely related to the industry safety supervision environment. Yes, strict supervision means an increase in costs. That is to say, life can be counted as a cost. Although this is cruel, it is a fact. This is also the reason why major safety accidents often occur in poor countries.
Of course we want to talk about the educational composition and changes of China Southern Airlines employees:
Judging from the five-year comparison, the overall academic qualifications are still improving. The largest proportion of people with a bachelor's degree has increased by nearly 10 percentage points, accounting for more than half. , the number of people with graduate degrees and above also increased, while the number of people with junior college and technical secondary school degrees and below dropped significantly.
It seems that a considerable number of flight attendants (mainly what we usually call flight attendants) already have a bachelor's degree. Some people often sarcastically say that they are also waiters, why should the waiters in the sky look more high-end. In fact, it is unfair to say this about flight attendants. The reason is that if we continue to maintain the current model of only using young and good-looking flight attendants, they will be quite young when they lose their jobs. Then flight attendants with higher academic qualifications will continue to develop in new careers in the future. Of course, they may not necessarily be able to work at the previous airline.
technology must be people-oriented. Aviation is a standard service industry, and more importantly, not only customers are the foundation here, but employees are also the foundation. As labor costs rise and become more and more important, I think the next stage of competitive advantage may not be all about how much hardware is purchased, but will definitely revolve around people. In the aviation industry, some companies will also pay attention to it. In order to discover the advantages in this area and achieve success.
Tomorrow we will talk about Spring Airlines and make some simple comparisons between and China Southern Airlines .
