Job hunting winter Internet companies even outsource architects with a monthly salary of 80,000 yuan

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On the one hand, the number of employees is decreasing, while on the other hand, the demand for outsourced positions is steadily increasing.

Recently, there have been constant reports of Internet companies reducing recruitment and laying off employees. The IT Times reported on November 23rd, "Internet companies reducing recruitment: e-commerce and games are the hardest hit areas", which mentioned that giants such as Huawei, Didi, and Tmall are gradually freezing some positions. The latest news obtained by reporters this week is that in order to save costs, Internet companies have also used another trick - outsourcing positions. In addition to outsourcing low-tech and large-scale positions, jobs related to artificial intelligence and cloud computing have gradually appeared in the list of outsourcing needs, and even system architects with a monthly salary of 80,000 yuan are among them.

The outsourcing demand of Internet enterprises continues to rise

Liu Ming recently attended a recruitment interview for the Didi Chuxing information review position in Beijing. There were at least 200 people taking the assessment, but only 20 were selected. According to his recollection, the same position had just completed a round of recruitment one month ago, and he did not expect that the second round would start so soon.

However, it was not Didi Chuxing that organized this recruitment, but a service company specializing in IT outsourcing. All successful candidates will sign a labor contract with this company. "It's a bit like labor dispatch, but now it's called project outsourcing." Two days after the interview, Liu Ming received the employment notice, but the salary and benefits provided on it made him a little difficult to accept. "In addition to the basic salary, there is no subsidy for overtime, not to mention the year-end bonus, and no other employee benefits are mentioned." Although the agreed working hours are from 9:30 am to 6:30 pm, the actual working hours are much longer. "The employer repeatedly confirmed with me whether I can accept overtime." However, the important reason why Liu Ming is reluctant to refuse easily is that even if it is "outsourcing", the experience of working at Didi may help him in his future job search.

Unlike the continuous "reduction" of formal positions in Internet companies, the outsourcing market is still "hot". In addition to traditional customer service outsourcing projects, a large number of technical positions derived from emerging businesses have also become the main force in the outsourcing industry. According to data provided by a third-party IT human resources service company in Beijing, Ant Financial's small and micro loan voice and certification review business, Sina Weibo content review project, Tencent video review, social platform content review project, Didi Chuxing map annotation project, travel information review project, etc., are all "outsourced" in the form of outsourcing, and the average scale of employment for these projects is more than 500 people.

"The demand for outsourcing customer service positions increases by 50% each year, and the demand for technical outsourcing such as website development, technical testing, and content review increases by 20% each year. Next year, the demand for technical service outsourcing will increase more significantly." According to the above-mentioned IT human resources service provider, currently nearly 40,000 of their company's 50,000 outsourcing teams are engaged in technical service outsourcing.

Second- and third-tier cities become the main force of "outsourcing"

The income of programmers is half of that of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou

"I couldn't continue working here after half a year. I was doing the same work as Huawei employees but earning less than half of what they earn." A person who resigned from an outsourced project of Huawei in Nanjing complained about the unfair income of outsourced work.

"For enterprises, the cost difference between outsourcing and non-outsourcing is at least 10%, and some can even reach 20%." A person engaged in IT outsourcing services revealed that the outsourcing business of Internet companies used to be mainly concentrated in Shenzhen and Jiangsu and Zhejiang, but now Chengdu, Wuhan, Hefei and Chongqing are emerging. One of the important reasons is that the labor cost in these areas is lower. He calculated for the reporter that in Beijing, the cost of an ordinary technical employee borne by the enterprise is 16,000 yuan per month on average, but in Chengdu, the cost of the same position is only 9,000 yuan; similarly, in Beijing, the cost of a workstation is 2,000-3,000 yuan, but in Chengdu, it may only cost 800-900 yuan. The lower operating costs have attracted a large number of Internet companies to transfer a large number of outsourcing projects to second- and third-tier cities. At present, Sina Weibo content review, Tencent social platform content review, Alibaba Zheshang Bank call center project, etc. are located in Chengdu; Alibaba Tmall, Alipay customer service team, Tencent video review project, etc. are all located in Wuxi.

In these areas, the cost of outsourcing labor is relatively lower. Popular outsourcing technical positions such as Java, Php, Android, and C language can be found in sufficient supply in the talent markets of second- and third-tier cities. "The current monthly salary is around 15,000 yuan." An employee who participated in Huawei's development, testing, and operation and maintenance projects in Langfang, Hebei revealed that he returned to Hebei from a big city. According to the nature of his position, if he was in Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou, his monthly income would be at least 20,000 yuan. However, the cost of living in the local area is relatively lower. At the same time, he also hopes to learn some cutting-edge technical knowledge from Huawei's outsourcing projects.

It is understood that at present, the cooperation models between Internet enterprises and third-party outsourcing service companies are roughly divided into two categories: "per capita" and "per business volume". Enterprises pay a fixed fee to outsourcing companies on a monthly basis, and the five social insurances and one housing fund, holiday benefits, and overtime subsidies are all paid by the third-party outsourcing service companies from this fixed fee. According to the information obtained by the "IT Times" reporter, all Internet outsourcing projects pay five social insurances and one housing fund for employees according to the ** standard; at the same time, paying overtime pay is also very rare.

While companies are reducing costs, it is also leading to a lack of a sense of belonging among employees and high turnover.

Transferring labor dispute risks

An architect with a monthly salary of 80,000 yuan only spent two years

"The demand for outsourcing positions by Internet companies has continued to increase in the past two years. In addition to reducing employment costs, it has also transferred the risk of labor disputes to third-party service companies." said the person from the above-mentioned human resources company.

After consulting relevant laws, the reporter found that according to Article 58 of the Labor Contract Law, a labor dispatch unit shall enter into a fixed-term labor contract of more than two years with the dispatched workers; Article 63 stipulates that dispatched workers have the right to equal pay for equal work as workers of the employing unit.

"Few companies can do the above two things, so we recommend that companies sign agreements with employees in the form of project outsourcing." A Chengdu-based IT service outsourcing consulting agency revealed that although the nature of the work has not changed, the employment relationship has been "upgraded." From labor dispatch to business process outsourcing in the past, in the field of IT outsourcing services, this type of personnel outsourcing has recently been defined as "digital operation" in order to avoid legal risks.

"In our outsourced projects, we have almost everything from customer service, big data labels to architects." An industry insider revealed that many high-end positions appear in the outsourcing demand list. "The Internet is changing at a fast pace. With the economic contraction, companies have to face the optimization of their personnel structure. If companies want to dismiss employees according to relevant laws, they must bear N+1 compensation, which will be a great burden on companies." Therefore, in recent years, many Internet companies will outsource important R&D projects. According to a project manager, architects with a monthly salary of nearly 80,000 are now also popular positions in the IT service outsourcing market. Many Internet companies are willing to spend a lot of money to hire high-paid architects because they consider that after the project is completed in one or two years, there is no need to bear the risk and cost of "dismissal".

But is "staff outsourcing" really the only way to solve all problems? In the opinion of a lawyer, many companies currently have the behavior of "real dispatch, fake outsourcing" to evade the legal obligations of "equal pay for equal work and signing a labor agreement with employees for a fixed labor term". But in fact, the court has clear identification standards for such behavior. If employees find that their legal rights and interests have been violated, they can sue the employer and get compensation.