Xing Wei, a graduate from a vocational high school in northeastern China in 2003, started his career as an electrician in an auto parts factory in the country’s south. Despite earning a modest salary and living in cramped conditions, he persevered. Fast forward two decades, and Xing is now a senior electrician, earning close to $60,000 a year, installing industrial robots at electric car factories for Nio, a Chinese automaker. He even purchased a $52,000 Nio ES6 sport utility vehicle. The electric vehicle market in China is booming, leading to a high demand for electricians and robotics specialists.
However, there is a shortage of skilled workers in the industry. China’s vocational training programs are struggling to keep up with the rapid growth of the electric vehicle manufacturing sector. The country also faces an oversupply of university graduates who are not interested in factory work. Technicians and engineers like Xing are in high demand, earning significantly more than assembly line workers at automotive plants.
Chinese automakers, fueled by state-owned bank loans and municipal assistance, are constructing electric car factories at a faster pace than sales are rising. This has caused a price war and led to many companies in the industry losing money. Nio, for example, recently announced layoffs. The labor shortage in the industry can be traced back to the lack of foresight in training enough workers for the electric car boom.
Efforts have been made by the Chinese government to address the shortage, but the rising aspirations of Chinese parents and the stigma associated with factory work have hindered progress. The number of teenagers entering vocational and technical high schools has declined, while the number of students attending academic high schools has remained steady. Companies in China have been slow to establish long-term apprentice programs, further exacerbating the shortage of skilled workers.
To address the labor shortage, China is turning to automation. The country installed more industrial robots in 2022 than the rest of the world combined. Nio plans to replace half of its managerial positions with artificial intelligence and a third of its factory workers with robots by 2027. However, robots can only partially meet the growing demand for factory technicians. Companies like Volkswagen are also hiring engineers to develop electric cars, creating even more demand for specialists in the field.