Chapter 408: Deep Processing

Chapter 408 -190: Deep Processing

Another factor was dietary habits. The per capita consumption of meat, eggs, and milk among many domestic consumers was already quite high, making further significant growth a difficult prospect.

This almost foreseeable future forced Jiang Miao to consider a problem: how to avoid fiercely competitive industries while still making full use of all this soybean protein.

Engaging in price wars with domestic companies was sometimes very difficult to win.

The main issue was that Jiang Miao still had a sense of shame, whereas some companies were completely shameless. This alone created a clear difference in their respective labor costs.

Take the Gannan Branch of Hailufeng Company, for example. Its relatively high wages had prompted numerous complaints from local businesses, who accused it of disrupting the market and engaging in malicious competition.

Clearly, when it came to shamelessness, Jiang Miao was no match for many of the unscrupulous domestic business owners.

And in labor-intensive industries, labor costs often accounted for a significant portion of expenses.

Take Hailufeng Company’s labor costs, specifically at its Gannan Branch. A regular farm worker’s base salary was 3,500 yuan, including comprehensive social insurance and housing fund contributions. There was virtually no overtime, holidays were compensated with time off, and each employee was guaranteed at least eight days off per month.

Likewise, a regular worker at Hero Dairy’s farms earned a base salary of 3,500 yuan.

Apiary workers, who were paid more, had a base monthly salary of 6,500 yuan.

However, the Gannan Branch had a high proportion of Agricultural Technicians. On the camellia oil plantations, for instance, the ratio of regular farm workers to Agricultural Technicians was about 6-to-4.

The regular farm workers were mostly older migrant workers, generally in their forties, while the Agricultural Technicians were typically in their twenties and thirties.

This was to be expected. Hailufeng Company’s farms were all intensive, mechanized, and technologically advanced, so the proportion of technical staff was bound to be high.

Coupled with Hailufeng Company’s various hidden benefits, in places like Gannan, it became a top employment destination, second only to government jobs and state-owned enterprises.

This was especially true for middle-aged people from rural areas with limited education. They were in a rather awkward position amidst the current economic tides. They could have originally found work on construction sites, but with the recent decline in large-scale infrastructure projects, the real estate sector no longer needed as many migrant workers. Meanwhile, other industries couldn’t absorb such a large workforce all at once.

Consequently, Hailufeng Company’s farms became a key source of re-employment for these migrant workers.

Local young people also applied for the technical positions on the farms, particularly those with associate’s degrees. They were quick learners when it comes to technology, and many were skilled with computers and smart equipment.

In reality, the base salary wasn’t what really made the other local companies lose their cool.

The main issue was Hailufeng Company’s various allowances, performance bonuses, and profit-sharing. Although the Gannan Branch’s virtual stock hadn’t been distributed yet, the allowances and performance bonuses were paid out monthly.

This was especially true for the apiary workers at the Gannan Branch. During peak honey-harvesting season, a regular apiary worker could earn a performance bonus of around 3,000 yuan. Combined with various miscellaneous allowances, their take-home pay, after social insurance and housing fund deductions, was about 9,000 yuan a month.

Regular workers on the camellia oil plantations also received considerable performance bonuses, though theirs were around 1,000 to 1,500 yuan per month. Their bonuses came from a share of the profits from pasture grass and honey.

Once the camellia oil seeds could be harvested, the performance bonuses for the plantation workers were set to skyrocket.

At first, local companies thought Hailufeng Company’s wages were nothing special—not much better than their own.

But as Hailufeng Company’s local operations expanded and one industry after another went into production, performance bonuses began to make up an increasing share of employees’ income.

What made things even more difficult for ordinary private companies was that Hailufeng Company didn’t require frequent overtime. Except in special circumstances, the factories and farms reduced labor intensity and working hours by increasing their headcount.

In fact, Jiang Miao had initially considered whether to reduce the company’s headcount by offering more pay for more overtime.

However, after careful consideration, he abandoned the model of using overtime pay to reduce the number of employees.

While paying more for overtime could reduce the total number of employees, the drawbacks were obvious: it led to physical and mental exhaustion among staff, a higher rate of accidents, an increased incidence of occupational diseases, and a diminished sense of belonging. Furthermore, the overall labor costs wouldn’t necessarily be much lower.

Moreover, the weighted impact and weighted increase in consumption generated by two employees earning 3,500 yuan each could not be equated with that of one employee earning 7,000 yuan.

Of course, for a small business with only a few dozen employees, the model of paying more for overtime would naturally be the priority.

But for a company like Hailufeng Company, prioritizing influence and increased consumption was essential.

Take the Gannan Branch, for instance. If it had adopted a model of overtime, higher pay, and temporary workers, it would have needed fewer than 1,500 full-time employees.

As it stood, however, the Gannan Branch had approximately 3,700 full-time employees. This figure didn’t even include the 1,800 employees at Hero Dairy or the 300 staff in the brick-and-mortar retail division.

And this wasn’t the Gannan Branch’s final headcount. The camellia seed oil press, the advanced processing plant, and the fruit production base had not yet begun their large-scale hiring.

Hero Dairy’s advanced dairy processing plant also wasn’t fully operational yet.

In the future, Hailufeng Company’s total number of employees in Gan Province was projected to exceed ten thousand.

Clearly, under these circumstances, Hailufeng Company’s influence in Gan Province would become immense, and the resulting increase in local consumption would also be substantial.

For example, in Hailufeng Company’s home base of Shanmei City, thanks to the revenue from the Egyptian Catfish and the company’s ever-expanding workforce, there had been a very noticeable increase in the local consumption of strawberries, Ginseng Fruit, Tomatoes, White Truffles, meat products, and dairy products.