The Employment Fault Forces The Transformation And Upgrading Of Nantong'S Textile Industry

Tongzhou is a famous textile town with a relatively complete industrial chain covering the whole process of upstream and downstream fields such as raw material production, weaving, printing and dyeing, R&D design, finished product production, sales market, freight logistics, etc. In 2023, the turnover of Tongzhou home textile industry market will exceed 120 billion yuan, making it the largest home textile industry cluster in China and the largest home textile production base in the world.

However, a recent reporter's field visit found that what does not match the huge market is that most of the front-line workers in the textile industry are in their forties and fifties. "High labor costs and old employees are common problems in our industry." Huang Meiqin, the director of Nantong Mingfu Textile Co., Ltd., has been engaged in the textile industry for 35 years, and in recent years, he increasingly finds it difficult to recruit front-line workers.

Faced with problems and solved them, Tongzhou's relevant departments and enterprises worked together to find solutions from many aspects, such as enhancing the sense of belonging of employees, unblocking the growth channels of front-line workers, and introducing intelligent production lines.

Nationwide recruitment, improve treatment

Enhance employees' sense of belonging

"We have just released a recruitment notice in WeChat groups. There are several WeChat groups like this nationwide group." Mingfu Textile Co., Ltd. mainly produces and sells yarn dyed fabrics and clothing. The company has 120 employees, most of whom are local people in Nantong, and only a few are from other places. Huang Meiqin said that a few years ago, many foreigners were willing to study textile in Nantong and stay to work. In recent years, fewer people were willing to work in the textile industry, especially young people.

"At present, two of our front-line employees are from other places and have been working with relatives for five years." Huang Meiqin said that employees introduced by acquaintances are more stable, so in addition to attending job fairs organized by the government and publishing recruitment information through WeChat groups, the enterprise will also encourage employees to introduce their relatives and friends to the company, And give corresponding rewards.

Recruitment of front-line workers in any area has become the consensus of Tongzhou textile enterprises. Jiangsu Old Tailor Home Textile Industry Co., Ltd., located in Chuanjiang Town, has 70% of its employees from other places. Li Xiaolei, the deputy general manager of the company, said that recruiting people is a prerequisite, and retaining people is fundamental. In order to attract more employees to stay and work, the company constantly improves the welfare of employees.

"Old tailors and home textiles pay high attention to the production and life of employees. In addition to providing employees with year-end bonus, festival award, overtime meal allowance, organizing employees' physical examination and group tourism and other benefits every year, the company has also built a 3000 square meter outdoor activity center and 800 square meter theme restaurant to constantly enrich the cultural and sports life of employees. This summer vacation, the company specially opened up a space to provide convenience for employees who take their children to work. " Li Xiaolei said.

Excavate talents and strengthen training

Smooth the growth channel of employees

On July 19, Tongzhou District held the textile industry special competition of the 13th Workers' Vocational Skills Competition, in which nearly 100 front-line textile workers participated. Ji Chunling from Pioneer Garden Yarn Dyed Weaving Co., Ltd. won the first prize in the cloth machine tour operation project competition.

Ji Chunling, a native of Henan, had worked in Zhangjiagang textile enterprises before and came to Tongzhou two years ago. She said that when she was in Zhangjiagang, she often participated in the textile skills competition of enterprises and even the whole city of Suzhou. She was very happy to participate in the textile skills competition of Tongzhou on behalf of enterprises and compete with more peers to learn from each other.

In recent years, Tongzhou District has regularly implemented the integrated activities of "training, military training, competition and promotion", and has carried out several special labor skills competitions in the textile industry, with a total of more than 5400 employees participating and nearly 1000 people upgrading their skills through competitions.

Lu Xuemei, the supervisor of the cloth machine workshop of the fabric factory of Nantong Dongdi Textile Co., Ltd., is a technical expert who has grown up from the front line through "training, training and competition". In 2020, Lu Xuemei, as one of the main members of the Jiangsu team, participated in the national final of the national textile industry weavers' (rapier looms) professional skills competition through layer upon layer selection. Finally, with a total score of 92.3, she was awarded the title of "National Textile Industry Weaving Operation Expert" by the China Cotton Textile Industry Association and the Textile Industry Vocational Skills Appraisal and Guidance Center. In 2011, Lu Xuemei was honored as the third "Tongzhou Craftsman" in Tongzhou District, and in 2023, she won the title of provincial May Day women's pacesetter.

Tongzhou has also continued to establish a sound textile craftsman training mechanism by creating an industrial chain model worker craftsman innovation alliance matrix, organizing and carrying out activities to select "textile artisans", naming textile industry skill master studios and other ways. Up to now, there are 6 textile industry model workers (skilled masters) workshops in the district.

Intelligent transformation and digital transformation

Improve enterprise production efficiency

Recently, when I walked into the production workshop of Jiangsu Lansiyu Home Textiles Co., Ltd., I saw that the intelligent production line was fully loaded, and the workers were operating the mechanical equipment in an orderly manner.

Lansiyu is a large-scale textile enterprise integrating modern production, product R&D design and marketing services. From 2018 to 2019, the company invested 16 million yuan to introduce the fully automatic hanging production line of kits imported from abroad, and realized the integration of information technology. In 2022, the company started the digital factory project again, and realized the personalization and intellectualization of the whole process from consumer ordering to production processing, packaging and delivery with the help of C2M system (user customization mode). "After the whole process of the workshop was digitized, the production efficiency was improved by more than 30%," said Cai Chunhua, IT director of Lansiyu.

For home textile enterprises, intelligent transformation and digital transformation will not only bring new competitiveness and development opportunities, but also qualitative changes in labor costs and production efficiency.

In recent years, Tongzhou has always taken the intellectualization and digitalization of the home textile industry as an important task, organized enterprises to go out to study, investigate and investigate, and connect high-quality enterprises in various links such as software and hardware services, supply chain platforms, channel sales, etc., to create a digital ecosystem and lead the transformation and upgrading of the home textile industry. Up to now, 27 digital technological transformation projects have been implemented among 345 high-end textile enterprises in Tongzhou.

(Source: Nantong Daily)