Imagine a gig that involved getting up before dawn and delivering around 300 parcels per day on an electric motorbike to make RMB 12,000 (USD 1,770) a month. That sound good to you?
As this year’s Double 11 shopping festival counts down, recruitment websites in China are filled with posts looking for delivery men. Leading delivery companies including Deppon Logistics, China Post and ZJS Express have all posted urgent recruitment ads on jobs sites like 58.com, Beijing Youth Daily reported on Wednesday.
One recruitment ad from Yunda Express is hiring four delivery staff with a monthly wage between RMB 8,000 to RMB 12,000. It says, “Our need is urgent. Please call us directly for further inquiries if you are interested.”
According to Beijing Youth Daily, the average monthly wage for delivery men falls between RMB 5,000 to 8,000 – by comparison, consider that security guards get paid in between RMB 3,000 to 5,000 for what is a similarly non-technical blue-collar job.
The China Express Association predicts that this year’s Double 11 will generate more than one billion parcels. In addition, according to the State Post Bureau and Alibaba’s logistics arm Cainiao, 2.68 million delivery men are expected to join the delivery force, a YoY growth of 50%.
“We start sorting parcels at six thirty in the morning. It normally takes half an hour, yet since it is already the season of Double 11, now the sorting takes more than an hour,” Geng, a delivery men working for retailer Suning, told Beijing Youth Daily.
The delivery industry has been developing rapidly in China. According to Tencent Tech, experts believe that the number of individual deliveries are very likely to surpass 50 billion before 2020.