Alibaba to Help Its Couriers Earn More Cash as Rival JD Axes Base Salaries
Liao Shumin
DATE:  Apr 10 2019
/ SOURCE:  yicai
Alibaba to Help Its Couriers Earn More Cash as Rival JD Axes Base Salaries Alibaba to Help Its Couriers Earn More Cash as Rival JD Axes Base Salaries

(Yicai Global) April 9 -- Cainiao Guoguo, an logistics operator under Chinese e-commerce titan Alibaba Group Holding, wants to help its couriers boost their income by 20 percent over the next three years, while rival JD.Com is planning to end basic salaries and pay its delivery staff commission only.

Delivery workers are toiling ever harder amid rapid growth at Guoguo, but their earnings do not reflect that, the Economic Observer cited the Hangzhou-based firm's General Manager Li Jianghua as saying. He believes that higher pay will lead to higher quality service from Guoguo staff.

Rival JD Logistics, JD.Com's specialist delivery arm, denied rumors of layoffs in a statement yesterday but admitted that it was canceling its couriers' base pay. It justified the adjustment by saying its existing salary structure did not fit its business model.

A basic salary plus commission is not incentive enough for workers, the company said, adding that couriers who had been trialing the new payment system earned an average of more than CNY8,000 (UDS1,190) a month in some southern second- and third-tier cities. China's average salary in 2015 was a little over CNY5,000 a month nationwide, according to official data.

JD.Com itself was also caught up in a human resourcing scandal. A screenshot of an internal email that went viral online shows that the retail giant plans to cull staff who bring less bang for their buck and are unable to struggle hard -- regardless of health or family issues. It dismissed criticism of the scheme as "one sided" and without context, saying the firm plans to add 10,000 new jobs this year.

Cainiao Guoguo, which is directly owned by Cainiao Network Technology, has partnerships in place with major delivery firms ZTO, YTO, STO Express and many other courier companies, allowing it to cover more than 2,800 district and counties in China. It employs over 400,000 delivery workers.

Editor: James Boynton

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Keywords:   Cainiao,Logistics