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Workers stressed, confused as China cuts finance salaries but raises public sector pay (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

As an accountant in China, Ms Wei works in the finance sector where the government has been cutting and capping workers' pay.

China's financial sector is led by state-owned banks and institutions, which are ultimately controlled by the government.

Ms Wei's monthly salary has been reduced from 6,000 yuan to 4,500 yuan and her year-end bonus slashed by more than half.

"They [the government] started to cut everyone's salary last July. It's a heavy blow to my life," Ms Wei said.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

On the surface capping vulturous financiers to better support teachers, etc sounds like a good thing? Someone explain why this isn’t a good thing.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

At least read the except, if you're not reading the article? The lady is earning 800 USD monthly, and just lost a quarter of it. If anybody's vulturous it's not her.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Do note that it's not as bad as $800 sounds like to a US citizen: Shanghai is probably the most expensive city in China, and the cost of living there is $613 according to numbeo.com. But that's a pre-mortgage figure, and obviously a Western site may not be well up-pt-date with current realities.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

my understanding is that you need 1k income to live decent in non tier 1 city, and in tier 1 city, you will need 2k to make worth it vis a vis QoL.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

decently? definitely. a decent salary needs to be quite a bit above the cost of living

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

this comment and comment above are not logically congruent

You posit that her income loss is not too bad because bare min person can live on 613 so her going down to 600 is not that bad
Well obviously if you want a normal life you gonna need that cash money.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

My point was that it's bad, but not nearly as bad as someone earning $800 a month in the US. I did not articulate that well.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago

This isn’t stopping those at the top getting rich off the industry, it’s stopping single mothers from paying their mortgage.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago

On Chinese social media, there have also been complaints of pay cuts from people working for government-related employers in the construction, engineering, and media sectors.

But with no announcements from authorities about salary reductions in those industries, the scale of the impact remains unclear.

At the same time, China's government has increased the wages of public service workers.

I'm not sure what exactly "public service workers" entails, but since the article mentions them being the foundation of government management, I suspect it to mean only the bureaucrats (known in China as "civil servants" 公务员, which literally translates to "public servicing personnel") got a raise.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

You are confusing a wage slave with the industry she works for.

That's like saying a janitor at bank is now part of the bank owner and operator class.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

sounds like a good thing

But at what cost?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

it's a good thing.