Happiness for some, sorrow for majority
A recent survey of enterprises shows employees' wages have gone up by 9 percent. That reflects the happiness of a minor group, not the majority, says an article in Guangzhou Daily. Excerpts:
A recent survey by Guangzhou-based Taihe Consultant Corporation has raised serious doubts. At a time when enterprises are still struggling to emerge from the shocks of the global financial crisis, it sounds more like a joke to say that the wages of employees have been gone up by 9 percent.
Such jokes acquire sinister meanings when they are presented as results of official surveys. Even official experts concede that there are inaccuracies in the data, because more than 60 percent of the workers were not covered by the survey.
Though the data are being updated and made more comprehensive by bringing the employees of private companies under the survey, it is far from enough. For example, the survey will still not cover migrant workers who toil for the least pay and little or no rise. The number of such people has already exceeded 200 million, or more than one-seventh of the country's population.
The survey is detrimental to the welfare of the people because it presents the wrong picture about the state of affairs. The fact that a person's tax, pension and some other things depend directly on the salary imparts more meaning to the data.
A select group getting salary rise means the rest paying a greater percentage of their income to buy the same things. In other words, the news might reflect the happiness of a minority in society and the sorrow of the majority.
(China Daily 12/18/2009 page9)
