CHANGMINGZHEN, China – The smell, salty and pungent, wafts through the newly paved streets near the shiny new factory.
The factory is owned by a company called Laoganma, which makes a spicy pepper and soy sauce famous throughout China for its mouth-watering power. In a time of global pandemic, when workers’ jobs around the world are at risk, the factory’s scents indicate an opportunity.
Since opening in March, when China was still in the grip of Covid-19, the factory has struggled to find sufficient machine operators or quality control technicians. Now workers are migrating to Changmingzhen, a once peaceful agricultural town surrounded by green mountains and rice fields, from which young people fled in search of better jobs elsewhere.
Changmingzhen is a testament to China’s impressive post-coronavirus revival – driven by the calloused hands of the country’s factories and construction workers. With few exceptions, the rest of the world remains in a malaise driven by the pandemic. But when China releases economic figures for 2020 on Monday, they should show that its economy has grown despite losing in the first few weeks to the blockade.
On a recent night, cash-strapped workers left the factory at the end of their shift and flooded the stalls in the nearby market looking for hand-cut noodles, bananas and tangerines. The family business pays its production workers up to $ 1,200 a month. “Not bad for workers our age,” said Wang Mingyan, an employee who was leaving her shift.
The 50-year-old girl said she received an apartment without rent, a complimentary cafeteria and other benefits, as Laoganma competes with other companies for workers. The menu is not always to your liking, but it is a small price to pay.
“When you’re away from home,” said Wang, who moved from his hometown more than two hours ago, “you just fill your stomach.”
China froze a $ 15 trillion economy last February. He used brute force to isolate cities and provinces and drag people into quarantine.
Beijing used the same set of crude tools to make the economy work again. He ordered factories to reopen and state banks to lend. It told state-owned companies to restart.
Now the economy is advancing. Government subsidies are fueling new railway lines and factories. A state-owned company, alleged to be a competitor to Boeing and Airbus, says it will invest $ 3 billion in 22 major construction projects.
The role of the government makes China’s revival clearly worker. State levers are most effective when it comes to restarting large factories or large construction projects. He has long focused on keeping the working class happy, fearing the kinds of upheavals that brought politics down in the United States and Europe.
Beijing has a harder time solving other problems. Buyers remain nervous, and may be even more so because the virus has surfaced in several cities recently. Its economy still depends less on innovation and services than on production. Legions of university graduates still find satisfying jobs in short supply.
About 80 kilometers up the road from Changmingzhen in the provincial capital, Guiyang, Laoganma announced vacancies with three-foot-high signs at a local job fair. But work has little appeal for young people looking for a job.
“You may find one if you look, but it will not be the type you imagined,” said Grace Cai, majoring in tourism management at a university in Guiyang, “and not the type that meets the demand in your heart, or achieves your goal. . “
Ms. Cai did an internship last fall working as a waitress at a hotel restaurant. She fears finding a full-time job.
“There are a lot of students now,” she said, “and because of the epidemic, it really isn’t easy to find a job.”
Changmingzhen residents may not agree. It is in southwest China’s Guizhou province, in a county so poor five years ago that it became the target of China’s anti-poverty campaign.
Even before the coronavirus, authorities struggled to put idle hands to work. The national government has just built a modern expressway and a bullet train linking Guizhou to a neighboring province. Laoganma and other companies soon followed. The city is bustling with construction workers throwing apartments at new workers.
“All the factories are short of workers – all the locations have been recruited,” said Zhou Xin, a former farmer who gave up his rice paddies so that Laoganma could build his factory. “It is a lot of work and the local population is not willing to do it.”
Her own daughter studied in Shanghai and stayed to work for an industrial design company. He now runs a small restaurant across the street from the factory and still fishes in an adjacent river. He resents just one thing: the factory’s constant hissing and hissing noise.
“It doesn’t matter if you get used to that sound,” he said. “There are billions of renminbi invested here.”
The factory should have opened in February. Then the pandemic came.
Empty streets. Residents set up barricades at city entrances, checking everyone’s temperature. A mixture of fear and camaraderie kept almost everyone at home for six weeks, living on corn, potatoes and vegetables from the backyard.
Yang Xiaozhen runs a diner in Changmingzhen with his parents, charging $ 1.50 for a plate of dumplings. They closed. His parents stayed at home. Ms. Yang barely ventured out as well.
“We try to be attentive,” she said, “because we Chinese people are certainly very united and very attentive.”
But the virus never hit Changmingzhen. In late February, with the economy still stagnant, local authorities and Laoganma managers took action. (Laoganma did not respond to requests for comment.)
Neighborhood workers across the county were forced to find unemployed workers for the factory. City officials worked long hours to complete the nearby roads. Even the gardeners ran to plant rows of seedlings inside the factory fence.
Wen Wei was one of the first workers. She carries spices to the production line and earns $ 620 a month. Her husband, who fries pepper, earns $ 1,200 a month.
Laoganma’s package attracted them to Changmingzhen. He offered a free apartment for them and their two children and free meals in the company cafeteria. They only pay for water and electricity.
“You can’t find such a high salary elsewhere,” she said.
A few blocks south of the Laoganma factory, Zhu Haihua drives trucks to a steel factory that makes towers for wind turbines. Your $ 2,300 monthly paycheck does not include food or housing.
This is only half of what an average American truck driver earns. But the money goes much further in a village in the Chinese mountains. The frantic construction in recent years and permissive zoning regulations have produced an excess of newly built apartments. This allows Zhu to rent a three-bedroom apartment for just $ 175 a month.
“Renting here is very cheap,” he said.
For now, the sounds of machinery and construction often drown out the sounds of birds on the Chinese edges that surround the city. But the signs of weakness are not far away. Business in Ms. Yang’s cafeteria has never fully recovered.
While the Laoganma plant continues to pump its spices into the air, government-backed construction projects may not last. High-speed rail construction teams are moving beyond the village. They come back less often to spend money.
Cai Liuzhong, owner of a drilling materials store next to Ms. Yang, is preparing to follow the works to the next expanding city.
“We just follow where it goes,” he said.
Yang Faxue, a frequent visitor to the restaurant, feels a quiet confidence that he will always have a job. The 36-year-old worker has been on the road for most of the past two decades, leaving his home about a two-hour drive from Changmingzhen to work initially in the large city of Nanjing. His wife – and eventually three children – stayed at home.
Mr. Yang was pleased to find a job opening in Changmingzhen, closer to home. And work barely stopped during the pandemic.
“The houses still need to be built,” he said. “Work is work.”
Claire Fu contributed research.