Can China’s second-gen factory owners give ‘made in China’ a second chance in crisis?
- Like young monarchs, suddenly thrust at the helm of their family’s legacy, Gen Z and millennials are returning to oversee decades of business growth in difficult times
- The generation that made China a manufacturing powerhouse is being aged off the job, heaping responsibilities on often-unprepared offspring – but their fresh ideas may just save the industry
After bouncing between multiple jobs – from furniture sales to e-commerce – for a decade, Rachel He decided to go home in 2021 and take over a 30-year-old factory founded by her father.
The major reason for her return was that her parents are in their sixties, and their waning health no longer allowed them to fully commit to the daily operation of a factory with around 50 workers.
“I’m their only child. If I don’t go back, is the factory really going to be shut down?” said the 34-year-old. “Then what about those employees who have been following my dad for over 10 or 20 years?”
Located in Foshan, Guangdong, He’s factory is part of the local industrial cluster specialising in aluminium plating – an indispensable construction material used for ceilings in office buildings and escalators in malls.
But before she officially became the new boss, she knew very little about the industry and had no idea how to operate a factory or navigate its litany of priorities, from taxes to recruitment. And now, two years into the gig, He faces the challenges that come with a significant economic slowdown, and she is trying to balance that with frequent trips to see her father at the hospital.
“Sometimes I would get so tired, so confused, and I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “Then I would just send a message to the chat group to ask, like how to hire new people, how to manage, and even how to safely pull out in case the factory really can’t keep going any more.”
