Biz News Flash

Officials release wage guidelines in Beijing

By Li Jiabao (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-26 15:34

The Beijing Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau released its wage guidelines for 13 industries, ranging from the food manufacturing industry to the real estate development industry, for 2009/2010 on Friday.

This is the first time the city has released an industry-specific wage guideline meant to serve as a reference for employers to design proper wage structures. The city has previously released corporate wage guidelines, but did not specify industries.

Workers have a lunch break at a subway construction site. [Wang Jing / China Daily]

The report also ranked industries based on how much money an employee earns his or her company relative to his or her wage.

The real estate development industry took the first place with a labor input and sales revenue ratio of 1:51.82 and the property management industry was ranked last with 1:5.35, according to the bureau.

The figure means that one yuan of a real estate development industry employee's wage could bring up to 51.82 yuan in revenue to the employer.

Real estate employees enjoy average annual incomes of up to 75,998 yuan while property management employees only earn as much as 34,836 yuan, according to Beijing Morning Post.

This is the second time the real estate development industry has had the highest average annual incomes in recent years, according to the report.

Other high-paid industries include computer services with an average annual income of 60,919 yuan and the food manufacturing industry, with an average annual income of 56,203 yuan, according to Beijing Times.

"The release of the guideline aims to slow down the wage increases in high-paid industries while helping pay rise in low-paid industries," an unnamed worker with the bureau told Mirror Evening Newspaper.

Compared with 2008, 12 industries saw their average annual incomes increase. The exception was the communication equipment, computer and other electronic equipment manufacturing industry, which had its annual average income drop from 43,281 yuan to 41,626 yuan.

The bureau did not release wage guidelines for 2008/2009 because of the global financial crisis, according to Beijing Evening News.

The bureau set a minimum wage of 11,520 yuan a year, or 960 yuan each month, in the city.

The bureau also set warning levels for companies to avoid bankruptcy with overwhelming labor costs. The warning level is based on the labor cost and the average sales revenues in a given industry, according to the release.

When the employees' annual income in a company is 1.5 times higher than the city's average annual wage, the company should reduce its wage-increase rate, according to the release.

The capital's average annual wage was 48,444 yuan, or 4,037 yuan per month, in 2009.